04/15/2026
Congratulations to our founder, Dr. Lewis L. Coriell, who has been nominated to the
New Jersey Hall of Fame Class of 2026 in Education, Research, Engineering & Science. His lifetime of achievement has shaped science and education.
Throughout his career, Dr. Coriell made major advances in public health. In the 1950s, he helped develop the polio vaccine and led field trials of the Salk vaccine. He later developed air filtration systems to reduce contamination in labs and operating rooms. In the 1970s, in partnership with the NIH, he built the world’s largest cell depository, supporting research worldwide.
Dr. Coriell played a key role in the Camden community. In 1948, he became the Medical Director of the Camden Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases, where he worked to improve patient care in South New Jersey. Five years later, in 1953, he founded the South Jersey Medical Research Foundation Laboratory, the region’s first nonprofit academic medical research institute; it later became the Coriell Institute for Medical Research. Since its founding, Coriell has grown into a world-renowned research center that studies the genetic causes of disease and aging and builds important biobanks. These biobanks contain some of the world’s largest collections of cell lines, DNA, and other biomaterials for researchers everywhere.
Thank you, Dr. Coriell, for your lasting contributions to public health, life sciences, and the City of Camden and the State of New Jersey.
To learn more or to vote, visit votehalloffame.com.
