In order to stimulate the activities of scientists and clinicians from around the world studying the histiocytic disorders, the Histiocyte Society is sponsoring an annual prize for the best scientific article at the Annual Meeting. The Award will be given in honor of Dr. Christian Nezelof, renowned pathologist, investigator, teacher, founding member and first President of the Society, to a physician or scientist who is carrying out basic research on the therapy, biology or pathogenesis of one of the histiocytic disorders.

• Dr. Nezelof contributed significantly to the development of Pediatric Pathology as a subspecialty by creating a network of various specialties and also trained many clinicians and foreign pathologists. He has served as a consultant for the world of histiocytosis, always giving a friendly and illuminating answer to anyone's questions.
  
  
• In 1960, Dr. Nezelof played a key role in describing a clinical condition of immune deficiency in childhood, in which the existence of a "split" in the human lymphoid system toward T- and B-cells was recognized. An immune-deficient child was described as afflicted by a thymic hypoplasia, but with normal level of immunoglobulins "Lymphocytophtisie avec normogammagloblinemie"). In the pediatric literature this condition became known as Nezelof's syndrome.
  
  
• In the field of histiocytosis, his seminal contribution was that Letterer-Siwe, Hand-Schuller-Christian and eosinophilic granuloma are linked to the same cell, having a common ultrastructural marker designated as the Langerhans body (Birbeck granule). In his paper "Histiocytosis X: Histogeneticarguments for Langerhans cell origin", he noted the dendritic lineage of this disease. Not long afterwards the term Langerhans cell histiocytosis was introduced.

Histiocytic disorders continue to be one of his major fields of interest. In 1982 Dr. Nezelof described the successful growth in nude mice of a tumor after injection of cells from the pleural effusion of a child with malignant histiocytosis. After this manuscript entitled: "Tumor cell line characterization of a malignant histiocytosis transplanted into nude mice" his team has described successful establishment in vitro of the Malignant Histiocytosis DEL cell line.

The Society thought it entirely consistent with Dr. Nezelof's great interest in new developments of basic pathophysiology, bridged with his key-role in supporting others that this prize be given in his honor. The awardee need not be a physician, but the focus of the work should be on some aspect of the pathophysiology of the histiocytic disorders.

Judgement will be based on a written abstract describing work done by the candidate him/herself. It is understood that the winning abstract may have  co-authors, but that the first author must be the leader of the project and the one who is awarded the Nezelof Award. The Program Committee will provide time during the Annual Meeting for presentation of the winning paper. The decision by a special committee of the Histiocyte Society will be based on scientific content, originality, relevance and organization of presentation. The prize will consist of $500 US Dollars and a certificate.