ASPET is pleased to announce the return of the Otto Krayer Award in Pharmacology.
The award will be given for the purpose of recognizing a distinguished, mature investigator whose research has contributed significantly to a better understanding of the mechanisms of action of drugs or other chemicals.
This award was originally established in 1985, suspended in 2003 and will be returning to active status with a presentation at the 2017 ASPET Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology. After that, the Krayer Award will be presented biennially in even-numbered years starting in 2018.
This award was originally suspended due to limited financial support and its return was made possible by a gift to ASPET from Dr. Charles O. Rutledge. Additional donations made in memory of Dr. Otto Krayer will be helpful to ensure this award has long term financial stability. Donations can be made to ASPET online.
Otto Krayer (1899–1982) was born and educated in Germany. He left in 1934 soon after refusing a prestigious chair appointment offered by the Nazi government when a new law was established banning Jews from such positions thus creating the open position. For this act of courage, he was forbidden to enter any German university or library. Read this fascinating story of his moral stand in an article by Rebecca Anderson, published in Molecular Interventions 5: 324-329 (2005).
Dr. Krayer eventually landed at Harvard Medical School where he remained until retirement. He was so beloved by his students that they presented the dean with a petition that led to him being granted tenure and made head of the department. After the war, he participated in war relief efforts and founded the Committee to Help German University Scientists to rebuild the devastated German academic community. Even after his retirement from teaching and research, he and his wife, Ruth, dedicated themselves to helping young pharmacologists.
We are honored to list Dr. Krayer as a past president of ASPET (1957). In 1961 he was awarded ASPET’s inaugural Torald Sollmann Award in Pharmacology.
Past recipients of the Otto Krayer Award in Pharmacology include such notable scientists as
Norman Weiner, William W. Fleming, John R. Blinks, Thomas F. Burks, Edwin E. Daniel, Michael J. Brody, Salomon Z. Langer, Michael J. Kuhar, Arnold Schwartz, Irving H. Goldberg, David J. Triggle, Edson X. Albuquerque, John C. McGiff, Theodore Slotkin, Horace Loh, Toshio Narahashi, Erik De Clercq, and Alan C. Sartorelli.
Nominations for this award will open in the summer of 2016 for presentation of the award in the spring of 2017.
Last updated: December 23, 2015