The Rai Binet Medal is awarded by the International Workshop on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (iwCLL) at the iwCLL biennial conference. The medal recognizes outstanding contributions to CLL research and is named for the first two recipients of the award, Kanti Rai and Jacques-Louis Binet.
Left to right: Peter Hillmen, Daniel Catovsky, Thomas Kipps, Federico Caligaris-Cappio, Michael Hallek, Kanti Rai, Stephan Stilgenbauer, Jacques-Louis Binet, Michael Keating, Guillermo Dighiero, Nicholas Chiorazzi, Emili Montserrat
Photo credit: iwCLL
Medalists
1999 Paris: Jacques-Louis Binet and Kanti Rai, for their description of the Rai-Binet CLL staging systems.
2002 San Diego: Michael Keating, for his early and continuing work with fludarabine.
2003 Stresa: Nicholas Chiorazzi and Terence Hamblin for their discovery of the importance of VH mutations.
2005 Brooklyn: Daniel Catovsky, for his work on the morphology of CLL and the MRC trials.
2007 London: Carlo Croce, for his discovery of the miR-15,16 genes at MDR 13q14, and TCL-1 mouse model, and David Galton (posthumously), for his work on the natural history of CLL and introduction of chlorambucil.
2009 Barcelona: Emili Montserrat, for his work on prognostic factors and stem cell transplantation.
2011 Houston: Guillermo Dighiero, for his life-long work in the French CLL trials and early insight into the biology of the B cell receptor (BCR).
2013 Cologne: Michael Hallek, founder of the German CLL Study Group, and Thomas Kipps, founder and PI of the CLL Research Consortium, for outstanding contributions to CLL.
2015 Sydney: Federico Caligaris-Cappio, for his work on CD5+ B cells, speculating that these were precursors of CLL, and identifying the phenotype, genotype, and function of anergic B cell clones in CLL, and Freda Stevenson, for identifying the correlation of CLL IGVH with stages of normal B lymphocyte maturation and the robust correlation of IGVH mutational status as a robust prognostic marker in CLL.
2017 Manhattan: John Gribben, for his work on restricted CLL antigens, tumor microenvironment, and leadership in bone marrow/stem cell transplantation, and Peter Hillmen, for his work on the UK CLL trials, monoclonal B cell lymphocytosis (MBL) and minimal residual disease (MRD), and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
2019 Edinburgh: Hartmut Döhner, for the hierarchical classification and clinical correlation of fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) for cytogenetic abnormalities in CLL.