Poste earns 2006 Albert Einstein Award

August 07, 2006

George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute at ASU, was awarded the Albert Einstein Award, presented in Jerusalem June 27 during the Third Annual Life Science Mission to Israel by the Global Business Leadership Council. The award recognizes business leaders who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in advancing human health worldwide.<separator></separator>Poste was honored for his role in the control of global infectious and parasitic diseases, and for his leadership in the development of new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.<separator></separator>Co-honorees for the Einstein award were professor James Rothman of Columbia University in New York and Carl Feldbaum, president emeritus of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in Washington , D.C.<separator></separator>Former awardees include Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project; Dick LeFave, chief information officer of Nextel; Jeremy Levin, the head of research and development at Novartis; Fred Frank, vice chairman of Lehman Brothers; and Tsvi Gal, president of AT&T's ATT.COM.<separator></separator>Because of the sudden crisis in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was unable to present this year's awards; in his place, former Israeli prime ministers Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu presided over the ceremony.<separator></separator>At the same ceremony, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Tommy Thompson, the former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, were presented with the Theodor Hertzl Award for advancing justice and democracy.<separator></separator>This latest award adds to many honors that Poste has received for his contributions to international health. He has received honorary degrees in science, law and letters and has been accorded the rank of Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He has been elected a Fellow of the Prestigious Royal Society and the Academy of Medicine in Great Britain, and in 2004 he was recognized as Scientist of the Year by R&D Magazine in the United States.<separator></separator>In addition to his contributions to medicine and international health care policy, Poste has received recognition for his contributions to U.S. national security. He serves as a member of the Defense Science Board that advises President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and he has been elected a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and a member of the prestigious Council of Foreign Relations in New York, to which Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano recently was elected.<separator></separator>Poste serves on a number of panels of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences related to national security, and he is a member of the Institute of Medicine Board on Global Health and the Forum for Microbial Threats.<separator></separator>

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