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Harden:   When did you begin to work on phagocytes, and how did you see that field develop as molecular biology differentiated various subsets of white cells? 

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Photo 2.  John Gallin and family outside the NIH Clinical Center as a Clinical Associate, circa 1972.  Left to right Michael Gallin, John Gallin, Alice Gallin, Elaine Gallin and John’s dad Nathaniel Gallin.

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Gallin:    After Harvey Alter won his Lasker Award, and I had been involved in several other Lasker nominations, I thought, “Why can't the hospital win it for public service?” So, we set out to figure out how to do that. John Porter had just stepped down as the Chair of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. He said, “I'm willing to do the nomination. I'll sign it,” and former Secretary Department of Health and Human Services, Dona Shalala, who was then president of the University of Miami, said, "I'll write a supporting letter." And Senator Inouye, who was a close friend of Senator Hatfield, said he would also write a letter. All these wonderful people were willing to support the nomination. In addition, we received support from scientists and also patients who contributed letters of support. And so, the nomination package was submitted, but some people said, "You'll never win it. They always want a famous person to get the public service award.” I said, “We’ll wait and see.” And we won! When we received the Lasker Award, I had the privilege of accepting the award on behalf of NIH. It was called the Bloomberg-Lasker Award and Michael R. Bloomberg, who was mayor of New York City at the time, handed me the award along with Maria Freire [Dr. Marie C. Freire], who was president of the Lasker Foundation at that time. She's now president of the Foundation for NIH.   

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Photo 8.  Conferring Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award to the NIH Clinical Center, 2011. “For serving since its inception as a model research hospital-providing innovative therapy and high-quality patient care, treating rare and severe diseases, and producing outstanding physician-scientists whose collective work has set a standard of excellence in biomedical research.” Left to right: Dr. Maria C. Freire, President, Lasker Foundation; Dr. John Gallin receiving award on behalf of NIH; Michael Bloomberg, Mayor New York City; Dr. Alred Sommer, Chairman, Lasker Foundation; and partially hidden, Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg, Chairman, Public Service Award Selection Committee.

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