• group photo distinguished alumni award winners 2014
    Cancer

    Mayo Clinic Announces 2014 Distinguished Alumni Awards

group photo distinguished alumni award winners 2014ROCHESTER, Minn. —  Brian G.M. Durie, M.D., E. Rolland Dickson, M.D., K. Krishnan Unni,  M.D., and Richard Weinshilboum, M.D., have been named recipients of the 2014 Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumni Award. The award honors individuals who exemplify Mayo Clinic’s ideals and mission. The honorees were recognized at a private event in Rochester recently.

The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees established the Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumni Award in 1981 to show appreciation for the exceptional contributions of Mayo alumni to the field of medicine. Individuals who receive the award have been recognized nationally and often internationally in their fields.

Brian G.M. Durie, M.D., is a professor of hematology/oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and a specialist in multiple myeloma and related disorders at Cedars-Sinai Outpatient Cancer Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. He is also chair of the board of the International Myeloma Foundation and medical director of AMyC Myeloma Consortium Core Sciences Solutions, LLC.

Dr. Durie has made considerable contributions to the diagnosis, prognosis and management of multiple myeloma, including his description of the first staging system for the disease (Durie-Salmon).

Rolland Dickson, M.D., is an emeritus professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester a clinician investigator in the Department of Internal Medicine and a supplemental consultant in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

He is well known for his contributions to the research of liver transplantation and hepatic disorders. The data acquired through his research was the basis and forerunner for the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score that is used throughout the world for assigning priority to patients awaiting liver transplantation.

Krishnan Unni, M.D., is a professor of pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and a professor of pathology and orthopedics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester.

He is an icon in the pathology of benign and malignant bone and soft tissue tumors. He has recognized new entities, including clear cell chondrosarcoma and small cell osteosarcoma, and has helped to establish current treatment guidelines.

Richard Weinshilboum, M.D., is chair of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, professor of medicine and pharmacology and the Mary Lou and John H. Dasburg Professor in Cancer Genomics Research at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

He is a pioneer in pharmacogenetics, and his continuing translational work in developing safer, more effective drug therapies makes a seminal impact on present-day individualized medicine.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  Alyson Gonzalez, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu