Wayne State University School of Medicine Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics Jeanne Lusher, M.D., died Sept. 13. She was 81.
A Rochester Hills, Mich., resident, Dr. Lusher retired from the School of Medicine in June 2013 after 44 years of exemplary service. She was a lifetime member of Wayne State's Academy of Scholars, the highest honor bestowed on a university faculty member.
She served as co-director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology and as medical director of the Special Coagulation Laboratory of Children's Hospital of Michigan.
Her main research interests include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, splenic structural physiology in a variety of hematologic/oncologic disorders in children, platelet-vessel wall interactions, development of new assay methods in blood coagulation, and the etiology and pathogenesis of inhibitor antibodies developing against FVIII, an essential blood-clotting protein. Dr. Lusher and a colleague were the first to document the antibody nature of these inhibitors in the late 1960s.
Dr. Lusher's many accomplishments were recognized with numerous awards, including the Distinguished Career Award from the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, the Marion I. Barnhart Endowed Chair in Hemostasis Research, the Lawrence Weiner Award, the Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellow, the Kenneth Brinkhous Award for Outstanding Research in Hemophilia from the National Hemophilia Foundation, the Career Achievement Award and the Visionary Award for Women's Bleeding Disorders from the National Hemophilia Foundation and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hemostasis Thrombosis Research Society. In 2015 she received the National Hemophilia Foundation's Inspiration Award for being an inspiration to others, including those with bleeding disorders, their caregivers, trainees in hematology and other physicians.
A native of Ohio, Dr. Lusher received her bachelor and medical degrees from the University of Cincinnati. During her postgraduate training at the Charity Hospital of Louisiana at New Orleans, she saw and treated children with a wide variety of medical problems and became particularly interested in hematology-oncology and blood coagulation. She joined the faculty at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1968 as an assistant professor of Pediatrics and staff hematologist at Children's Hospital of Michigan.
A memorial service for Dr. Lusher has been scheduled for Oct. 1 at 1 p.m. at Potere-Modetz Funeral Home, 339 Walnut Blvd., Rochester, Mich.