The Vital and Alice Pellissier Family Distinguished Speaker Series

Leonard A. Herzenberg, an immunologist and geneticist at Stanford University, made pioneering contributions towards the advancement of life sciences and clinical medicine. Herzenberg invented the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) which revolutionized the study of cancer cells and is the basis for purification of adult stem cells. This instrument made it possible to sort viable cells by their specific properties and is being used extensively to investigate the pathological condition of HIV carriers and leukemia patients. In 2006, Herzenberg was awarded the 2006 Kyoto Prize, Japan's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for developing the revolutionary cell-sorter technology in the late 1960s.

Herzenberg received his bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College in biology and chemistry and his doctorate degree from the California Institute of Technology in biochemistry with a specialization in immunology.

Herzenberg has won numerous other prizes including a lifetime service award from the American Association of Immunologists in 1998, the American Association of Clinical Chemistry's Edwin D. Ullman Award in 2002, and the Novartis Award for Immunology in 2004. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.