Dr. Leonard A. Herzenberg's Kyoto Prize acceptance speech

Thank you, first and foremost, to the Inamori Foundation and to its founder and president Kazuo Inamori. It is an honor to receive the 2006 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology from a business leader and philanthropist who truly cares about the direction our civilization is taking, not just in science and technology, but in how we live together.

Thank you to my wife Lee, with whom I have collaborated in life and in science for some 53 years. The work for which I am receiving the Kyoto Prize is very much hers as well. I only wish that the prize committee could include her as winner along with me.

Thank you to those with whom I worked in developing the Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorter, or FACS: Richard Sweet, Bill Bonner, David Parks, Wayne Moore, Vernon Oi, and Jeff Dangl. This is their award as well. And a special thank you to Bernie Shoor, the "Godfather of FACS," who oversaw the commercial development of this instrument and its entry into the clinical arena.

Thank you to the post-docs and collaborators with whom I have worked in flow cytometry over the years. Many are now well-known professors and university deans, not least here in Japan: Ko Okumura, Takeshi Tokuhisa, Hiro Nakauchi, Tohru Masuda and Kyoko Hayakawa. And to Kenichi and Naoko Arai, Tasuku Honjo, especially to Tomio Tada, who helped introduce the FACS to Japan and is now a famous nohplay writer, and to many other friends here far too numerous to mention. Lee and I have enjoyed many wonderful months of working and visiting here in this beautiful country among the world's most hospitable people.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my aunt, Lucille Friedberg, who has been my surrogate mother since the death of both my parents. My thanks to them go through her. And thank you to my children Berri, Jana, Michael and Rick for their patience with their always busy mother and father.

At a time like this, it is tempting to dwell on the past, on what we have all accomplished in the field of flow cytometry in the last 40 years. We have proved a vision - that we could only understand the biochemistry, genetics, physiology and function of different kinds of living cells if we could separate them from each other in adequate quantities to study. Before FACS, we could not do this. Now we do it every day, opening the way to stem cell transplantation, curing leukemia, curing AIDS and unraveling the many secrets of the single cell. We all have the right to feel very proud. But, if I may use an overworked and very American phrase, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

Flow cytometry and single cell biology are only just beginning to show their true potential. I truly envy my younger colleagues for the amazing discoveries they are now pursuing. I only wish I were young enough to start over again.Such is my optimism about the future of science. But, I am pessimistic as well. The very name Kyoto echoes with concern about the warming of our globe, a problem that too many governments — especially my own — still refuse to take seriously. How many glaciers have to melt before our political leaders wake up too late?

Two other cities here in Japan - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - warn of another danger that has concerned me all of my adult life. With the end of the cold war, many now feel that the danger of nuclear annihilation has passed. How wrong they are. The nuclear giants continue to maintain their arsenals. Nuclear weapons are now proliferating to countries throughout the world. And many experts believe that the danger of nuclear war is perhaps greater that it has ever been.

A host of nations are now rattling their nuclear sabers, spurred on by my own country and its ominous threat of unending pre-emptive wars. Perhaps now, with the new election results, we have a chance make things better.

We have the knowledge to end hunger and cure disease. Why can't we be smart enough to give peace a chance? 

Read Dr. Herzenberg's Kyoto Prize commemorative address: "The more we learn"