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Biol Trace Elem Res (2011) 143:12191222 DOI 10.1007/s12011-011-9203-x
Gerhard N. Schrauzer
Published online: 5 October 2011# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Klaus Schwarz (19141978) was a leading trace element researcher and is best known for his discovery of the nutritional essentiality of selenium. To honor trace element researchers that have made major discoveries in this field, the Klaus Schwarz Commemorative Medal was created in 1978 by G.N. Schrauzer, the Founder and President of the International Association of Bioinorganic Scientists, Inc.
This year, the Klaus Schwarz Medal is awarded to Joel D. Wallach D.V.M., N.D., for his 1978 discovery of an animal model of cystic fibrosis (CF) in the offspring of a family of inadequately fed rhesus monkeys (see Fig. 1). The discovery of this first animal model of CF demonstrated that pancreatic lesions histologically identical to those observed in patients with CF can be produced by dietary means, i.e., nutritional imbalances such as selenium deficiency, and that some forms of CF are, in principle, nutritionally preventable.
Joel D. Wallach was born in West St. Louis County on June 4, 1940. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the University of Missouri at Columbia, first to study Agriculture with a major in animal husbandry and a minor in field crops and soils. In 1962, he received a B.S. Degree in Agriculture from Missouri and continued on to study veterinary medicine at the same institution, which in 1964 awarded him the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. From 1966 to 1967, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in comparative medicine at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Washington University, St. Louis. Thereafter, he worked at Iowa State University Diagnostic Laboratory, Ames, Iowa, and subsequently, for 2 years, at Natal Fish & Game Department, Natal, Republic of South Africa.
During the early 1960s, environmental pollution and other ecological factors were thought to cause the premature death of captive animals and possibly of humans. The National Institutes of Health awarded the St. Louis Zoological Gardens a large grant to identify these factors. The project required a...