ABRF Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies

The award and will be presented at the annual ABRF meeting on Monday, March 30th, 2015 at 2:00pm. 

Click here for a list of past awardees.

The ABRF Award recognizes pioneers in biomedical technologies for their achievement and contribution to the development of powerful new tools which served as the foundation of the modern biological research enterprise. Biological research is driven by technology. As new instruments and chemistries are conceived and implemented, new frontiers are created and new possibilities emerge. Technologies, from the invention of the light microscope to the deciphering of the Human Genome and Proteome have opened doors into the unknown that otherwise would have remain firmly sealed. The 2015 ABRF Award is sponsored by Bruker, Nikon, Spectra Physics, Coherent, Applied Scientific Instrumentation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Zeiss, Leica Microsystems and ABRF.

John White and Brad Amos received their Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge, UK, and were members of the MRC’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology when they developed and patented the first high-resolution laser scanning confocal microscope in 1987. Their design and implementation was the first widely accessible system for the biomedical research community. Their design is the foundation for many subsequent commercial instruments, including modern state-of-the-art multiphoton and super-resolution microscopy systems.

While the principle of confocal imaging is much older (Nipkow, 1884; Minsky 1957), it was the design of White and Amos that was the first laser scanning confocal system to be widely used for biomedical research. Their ingenuity and insights resulted in key innovations that overcame prior limitations in a spectacular fashion. Their innovations included; scanning a laser beam over the specimen (rather than moving the sample), high magnification at the detector using a microscopic iris, developing an achromatic all-reflective relay system, a non-confocal transmission detector and novel software for computer control and basic image analysis. Working with Bio-Rad the first commercial laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM) was brought to production. The LSCM has revolutionized the field of light microscopy and survived the challenges of alternative technologies for almost two decades. By 2003, sales of LSCMs reached $150 million and virtually every major biomedical institution was using these instruments to investigate biomolecular events in cells and tissues. Equally important, the design of the LSCM became the de facto standard for future development of two-photon and super-resolution microscopies that enabled in vivo live cell imaging and pushed spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit. White and Amos have continued to innovate with additional patents in confocal and multiphoton laser scanning microscopy and a number of papers demonstrating the applications of these methods. The significance of their contribution has been recognized through numerous awards including the Mullard Award and Medal of the Royal Society (1994), Rank Prize for Optoelectronics (1995), Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society (2002), and the Ernst Abbe Award for Lifetime Achievement of the New York Microscopical Society (2005).

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