Rebecca H. Buckley, J. Buren Sidbury Professor of Pediatrics and chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., has received the 29th annual National Board Award, recognizing a woman scientist or physician who has made significant contributions to health care. It is presented by the Philadelphia-based Medical College of Pennsylvania, the United States' first medical school for women. Buckley received the college's Presidential Medal and a $5,000 research grant.
Buckley, 58, developed bone marrow transplant therapies for severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID). Before her work in 1982, only perfectly matched siblings of SCID infants could be bone marrow donors. Most afflicted babies did not have matched donors.
"It was horrible because they all died within a few weeks of being diagnosed," Buckley says.
In 1982, Buckley and colleagues found that transplants involving stem cells rather than mature T cells pose little threat of graft-versus-host disease...
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