Ernest McCulloch, a cell biologist and an eminent expert in normal and malignant blood formation, was best known for his ground-breaking research, conducted with James Till, a biophysicist, which demonstrated the existence of stem cells. They published their findings 50 years ago in the journal Radiation Research.
The paper stimulated much research into stem cells, and stem-cell therapy, many believe, will dramatically change the treatment of human disease. Some stem-cell therapies are already routinely used — such as bone marrow transplants for the treatment of leukaemia and other blood-cell cancers.
Stem-cell research has a huge potential but there is much controversy — scientific, political, ethical, and social — about it. Advocates believe that eventually they will be able to treat, if not cure, cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Ernest Armstrong McCulloch was born in Toronto in 1926. He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto. He then studied at the University of Toronto, receiving his doctor of medicine degree with honours in 1948.
Awarded the Ellen Mickle Fellowship and the Chappell Prize in Medicine, he studied for a year at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, at Bushey, Hertfordshire. Returning to Canada, he worked as intern at the Toronto General Hospital from 1949 to 1952 and was an assistant resident physician at the Sunnybrook Hospital, Toronto, between 1952 and 1953.
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In 1954 he joined the University of Toronto department of medicine as a lecturer. He also conducted research, on blood formation and leukaemia, at the Ontario Cancer Institute. By 1957 he was head of the subdivision of haematology in the Division of Biological Research at the institute.
In 1959 he was appointed assistant professor in the department of medical biophysics and in 1964 he was promoted to an associate professor. In 1966 he was appointed full professor in the department of medical biophysics. In 1970 he became a professor in the department of medicine.
After 1970 he focused his research on the malignant cells characteristic of acute leukaemia. He determined many of the factors regulating their behaviour, including their responses to chemotherapeutic drugs.
In 1991 he was appointed emeritus professor at the University of Toronto. Many of those trained by him now hold senior posts in universities in Canada and elsewhere. He published more than 275 papers in scholarly journals.
He served on numerous advisory committees, national and international and was president of the National Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada.
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He received many professional awards. In 1969 he and Till were jointly awarded the Gairdner Foundation International Award. In 1974 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and, in 1999, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1988 he became an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2004 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
In 2005 McCulloch and Till were awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for “setting the stage for all current research on adult and embryonic stem cells”.
In 2006, McCulloch was made a Member of the Order of Ontario. In 2007 he and Till received the National Cancer Institute of Canada Diamond Jubilee Award.
McCulloch is survived by his wife, four sons and a daughter.
Professor Ernest McCulloch, OC, FRS, cell biologist, was born on April 21, 1926. He died on January 20, 2011, aged 84