Brothers HERMAN (right) and WALTER SAMUELSON (below) were Baltimore natives who both attended high school at Baltimore City College and graduated from the University of Maryland Law School. Herman Samuelson was cofounder of the Jewish Convalescent Home and served for many years as an officer of its Board of Directors. He practiced law briefly and then joined with his brother to operate a successful real estate business. Their office was located near Johns Hopkins Hospital on Monument Street for many years.   In 1995, through their estates, they created the HERMAN AND WALTER SAMUELSON FOUNDATION, which in 1997 endowed a fellowship at Hopkins to support young investigators in pediatric oncology. The Foundation devotes its funds solely to religious, charitable, and educational purposes. In 1999, the Foundation's trustees--Louis F. Friedman, Robert I. Damie, and D. Sylvan Friedman--made a significant addition to their earlier gift in order to create this professorship, with the intent of supporting the work of renowned Hopkins clinician-scientist Curt Civin.

CURT I. CIVIN, the Herman and Walter Samuelson Professor of Cancer Research, was named the 1999 National Inventor of the Year in recognition of his discovery of the CD34 monoclonal antibody and stem cell purification process. Dr. Civin's pivotal research made it possible for the first time to identify, isolate, and collect hematopoietic stem cells, and it has revolutionized bone marrow transplants as well as opened doors to entirely new treatments and research. A member of the faculty since 1979, Dr. Civin is professor of oncology and pediatrics and co-directs the Division of Immunology and Hematopoiesis. He is the recipient of the Stohlman Award from the Leukemia Society of America, among many other honors, and he holds nine U.S. patents for biomedical inventions. His laboratory's current research is focused on the cell and molecular biology of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells and their malignant hematopoietic counterparts, the leukemias.