UAB Pathology celebrated the 27th year of its Paulette Shirey Pritchett Endowed Lecture in Pathology with an outstanding lecture by Elaine Jaffe, M.D., Series Editor, World Health Organization Classification of Tumours. Jaffe's lecture, "Charting the Future of Lymphoma Classification: A Road Map for Disease Discovery and Treatment," took place before a full house on Monday, September September 17, with the Pritchett family in attendance.
From left to right: George Netto, M.D., Elaine Jaffe, M.D., Yabing Chen, Ph.D., and Robert Pritchett, M.D.

This endowed lecture series is named in honor of Dr. Paulette Shirey Pritchett, and is supported by Dr. Robert Pritchett, husband of Dr. Paulette Pritchett, and family. Dr. Pritchett was a highly respected, young member of the UAB Department of Pathology when she unexpectedly passed away on August 4, 1984.She was a native Alabamian who obtained her medical degree from the University of Alabama, where she was awarded the Stewart Graves Award and the William Boyd Medal for her demonstrated excellence in pathology.

"It was a privilege to have Dr. Jaffe deliver the Pritchett lecture this year," says George Netto, M.D., Chair, UAB Department of Pathology. "Her talk, on the heels of the publication of the most recent 'blue book' of WHO classification of tumors, was an enlightening update on the latest taxonomy for lymphoma classification." 

Jaffe is the author of more than 600 peer reviewed articles, 150 book chapters and invited reviews, and 38 editorials. She is an editor for the WHO Classification of Tumours of the Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. She completed her medical studies at Cornell University Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania. She has been Chief of the Hematopathology Section at the NCI since 1980.

From left to right: Deniz Peker, M.D., Upender Manne, Ph.D., Sooryanarayana Varambally, Ph.D., Elaine Jaffe, M.D., Vishnu Reddy, M.D., X. Long Zheng, M.D., George Netto, M.D.

Science Watch named Jaffe among the 10 most highly cited researchers in clinical oncology, and she was included among the 400 most highly cited researchers in Biomedical Science worldwide between 1996 and 2011.        

Jaffe has held leadership positions in several major medical societies, including the American Society of Hematology, United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, and the Society for Hematopathology. She has served on 18 journal editorial boards. 

In 2008, Jaffe was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and in 2013 was awarded the Stratton Medal from the American Society of Hematology. She gave the Henry Rappaport Memorial Lecture at the Lugano International Congress on Malignant Lymphoma in 2013. Jaffe received the 2016 Rous Whipple Award from the American Society of Investigative Pathology.

Her clinical and investigational studies have been intertwined to enhance our understanding of the malignant lymphomas.