2015 Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal Award

Jack Lemons, University Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Engineering, has been awarded the highly acclaimed international 2015 Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal Award. The award recognizes excellence and leadership in biomaterials, including basic science and translation to practice.

A complex pathway led J. Lemons to a career in academics as part of a multidisciplinary environment at a university that includes a medical center.  During the 1950’s, opportunities for developing many different skills were initiated as a worker/helper/owner of a family-owned and operated lawn mower repair and machine shop in Florida, with part-time work as a motorcycle/automobile/boat-racing repair and junking provider. This, in part, resulted in trade school and junior college (an AA degree with a focus on the technical aspects of engineering), while simultaneously operating heavy construction machines, land/construction surveying, and owning and managing both the repair and machine shop as well as an automobile junkyard. This background became important within research laboratories, in that it was possible to understand and repair apparatus and machines of all ages and types.

Overall activities transitioned based on an interest in further education in materials engineering while working as a project/machinist helper in a multi-service materials engineering department machine shop at the University of Florida.  Academic degrees (AA, BS, MS and PhD) were completed from 1958 to 1968, while gaining considerable experience by participating in multiple faculty and student projects within a theme of materials science. Selective luck resulted in a position as a director/manager of a section of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Alabama where activities were based on extramural proposals and related contract/grant studies. Providing lectures at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) during evenings included chairing MS thesis programs in Engineering Materials Science and multiple projects supporting students within the UAB Medical Center.  Again, selective luck existed, when the central focus evolved towards materials for surgical implants and an assistant professor faculty position at Clemson University during 1969-70. This time period was when multiple faculty interests evolved to biomaterials, and annual Clemson University sponsored professional meetings were a significant part of the dynamics leading to founding of the Society for Biomaterials (J. Lemons was one of the founding committee members).

A desire to better understand the biological and clinical aspects of medical/dental procedures, including surgical implant devices, resulted in returning to UAB for a NIH-sponsored fellowship in medicine (1971-73) followed by dentistry in 1973-75 while initiating a collaborative program based on education, research and service within the UAB Schools of Dentistry, Medicine and Engineering. Academic positions moved from Associate to Full Professor which included chairing the Department of Biomaterials from 1978-1990. Multiple students as primary advisor (>300, and many continue interactions), abstracts and presentations (>600 presented throughout the world), publications (>300 in many different journals), books (>10 as a coauthor or editor), decades of smaller and larger extramurally funded research contracts and grants as principal- and co-investigator (through many different sources), plus extended intellectual property as patents over 4 decades, resulted in selection by UAB as a University Professor (the highest academic position and honor with fewer than 15 awarded) with co-activities in Dentistry, Medicine and Engineering.

Awards, keynote lectures and elected positions from universities and professional societies have included numerous selections from the disciplines of dentistry (materials, restorative and implants), surgery (orthopedic surgery) and engineering (materials and biomedical). Recognition for service has most often been from American and international consensus standards organizations (ASTMI, ADA- SCDP and ISO) where the focus has been on developing standards for medical and dental devices. This interaction as a member and leader has extended to harmonizing standards within the international community associated with clinical treatments that include devices.

A central research theme has always focused on surgical implant biomaterial-to-host interactions as related to biocompatibility under functional conditions. In vitro and in vivo studies of the interface between devices constructed from synthetic- and natural-origin biomaterials and the local and systemic environments of the host have been conducted with a goal of better understanding the conditions of stability for transfers of elements and forces over periods of shorter- and longer-term in vivo function. 

At this time, after 57 years of participation at many different levels, the university focus is interacting with students on research projects, attending selected professional meetings as a listener wanting to be educated, and continuing national and international consensus standards meetings as both a participant and leader. As often said to others, “My problems are self-inflicted; it will be interesting to see if it is possible to reduce university contact time to about 40 hours a week; and employment is not work if it is also your hobby”.