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Harold Milton Fullmer
THE FIFTY-THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE IADR, 1976–77
Harold M. Fullmer, Past President of both the International and American Associations for Dental Research, and former Director of the Institute of Dental Research and Professor Emeritus of Dentistry and Pathology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, died on January 20, 2007, in Birmingham, Alabama, at the age of 88. A member of the IADR for 53 years, he was the only person to serve simultaneously as President of both the IADR and the AADR. A native of Gary, Indiana, Dr. Fullmer received his BS (1942) and his DDS (1944) degrees from Indiana University. After two years in the US Army Dental Corps, he served his internship and residency in Oral Surgery at Charity Hospital, New Orleans. He was Instructor in Oral Surgery (1947–52) and taught General and Oral Pathology (1948–53) at Loyola University Dental School in New Orleans. In 1953, he became affiliated with the newly established National Institute of Dental Research at the National Institutes of Health, where he remained until 1970, rising through the ranks to become Chief of the Experimental Pathology branch. While working at the NIH, Dr. Fullmer, along with Jerry Lazarus, Bill Gibson, and Cliff Link, was the first to demonstrate the presence of the enzyme collagenase in human tissues, and they published their findings in Nature. This pioneering work provided the foundation for our present understanding of the wide-ranging roles of this enzyme in both physiologic and pathologic processes, from the degenerative changes seen in arthritis to cell invasion in cancer. In 1970, he moved to the University of Alabama at Birmingham as Director of the Institute of Dental Research. Associate Dean, and Professor of Dentistry and of Pathology. He was given the 1985 Distinguished Lecturer Award, the highest honor the UAB bestows on a member of its faculty. In 1987, he was made Professor Emeritus. During his distinguished career, Dr. Fullmer also served as Chair of the Section on Dentistry of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a Founding Member of the International Association of Oral Pathologists (President, 1978–81). He was founder and Editor of the Journal of Oral Pathology (now Journal of Oral Pathology & Medicine). He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Adelaide (Australia) in 1962. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Athens (Greece) in 1981, and received the Isaac Schour Memorial Award of the IADR, the Distinguished Alumni Award of the Indiana University School of Dentistry, and Indiana University’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award. He was widely respected as a scientist, an administrator, and a mentor. Memorial gifts may be sent to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, 1 Cloister Court, Suite 152, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. FOOTNOTES Editor’s note: The IADR/AADR are indebted to David McLain, MD, Dr. Fullmer’s son-in-law, for information contributing to this memorial.
Journal of Dental Research, Vol. 86, No. 12,
1133 (2007)
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