A member of Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Basic Medical Sciences faculty, Dr. Paul Robinson, is the newest Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS). The recognition is the society’s most prestigious accolade for contributions to cytometry.
Dr. Robinson is the Purdue Distinguished Professor of Cytometry and holds a joint appointment as professor in Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. He also is director of the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories, housed in Lynn Hall. Dr. Robinson was recognized by the RMS for making a huge contribution to the field of Cytometry worldwide. Those contributions include his list-serv, “Purdue Cytometry List,” which is utilized by more than 4,500 cytometrists, his work to teach cytometry in Africa through his Cytometry for Life organization, and his patented cytometry technologies.
A cytometry pioneer and longtime Purdue Veterinary Medicine faculty member, Dr. Robinson is known internationally. He served as president of the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) from 2006-2008. He is editor-in-chief of Current Protocols in Cytometry, associate editor of Histochemica et Cytobiologica, and past associate editor of Cytometry Part A. He also received the ISAC Membership Award in 2014 and the Distinguished Service Award in 2019. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2004), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020), and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2023).
Dr. Robinson has published more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and 36 book chapters, edited 10 books, and given hundreds of international lectures and conference presentations. He also has been active at the forefront of flow cytometry and microscopy development for several decades. His most notable achievements have involved developing innovative technologies such as spectral cytometry using multiarray PMTs (which has been commercialized by Sony and Thermo Fisher); developing optical tools for quantitative fluorescence measurement; advanced classification approaches for clinical diagnostics and bacterial classification; high content, high throughput screening technologies – specifically novel analytical software; and most recently, the development of single photon detectors in flow cytometry which would enhance the limit of detection.
Moreover, Dr. Robinson founded ‘Cytometry for Life’, a not-for-profit charity launched to focus attention on the need for low-cost CD4 technology for developing countries. To further draw attention to the issue of low-cost CD4, he successfully summited Mount Everest in 2009.
Based in Oxford, U.K., the Royal Microscopical Society uses a process for admitting new Honorary Fellows that is designed to reflect the prestigious nature of the Fellowship, and to ensure that only those candidates who have made the most outstanding contributions to microscopy or related branches of science are considered for the honor. New nominations for potential Honorary Fellows must be submitted by a current RMS member and are to include a full list of the nominee’s publications, 10 selected “top” publications, a 500-word summary of their contributions to research involving microscopy, and a supporting letter signed by five other RMS members.
