SBU Chair Of Orthopaedics Receives Top Honor By The Medical Society Of the State Of NY
Dr. Lawrence Hurst is 2010 Recipient of the Albion O. Bernstein, MD Award
STONY BROOK, N.Y., December 23, 2010 – Lawrence C. Hurst, M.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Orthopaedics at Stony Brook University Hospital, has received the 2010 Albion O. Bernstein, MD Award from the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY). The award is given to a physician or scientist who has made “the most widely beneficial discovery or developed the most useful method in medicine, surgery, or disease prevention” during a calendar year. He was presented with the award at the Society’s Council Meeting at the Marriott in Uniondale, N.Y., on December 9.
Dr. Hurst received the honor for his role in discovering and developing a new injectable form of the enzyme, collagenase, to treat Dupuytren’s contracture, a debilitating disease caused by progressive accumulation of collagen that deforms hands and fingers. Dr. Hurst discovered this treatment during a 15-year bench-to-bedside process with Stony Brook colleague Marie A. Badalamente, Ph.D., Professor of Orthopaedics. The new treatment passed Food and Drug Administration approval in 2010.
The award, which consists of a citation from the MSSNY and $2,000 prize, is one of the highest honors given by the Society to member physicians and scientists nationwide. It was established by the late Morris J. Bernstein in 1962 in memory of his son, a physician who died in an accident while on hospital call in 1940 in New York City.
“Dr. Hurst played a major role in the groundbreaking research at Stony Brook that led to a new treatment that can improve the quality of life for millions of people worldwide who are afflicted by Dupuytren’s contracture,” says Dorothy Lane, M.D., M.P.H., Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at ...
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