James L. Tullis (1914-1996)

• ASH Oral History transcript
• Articles published in Blood and The Hematologist
• Obituary in The New York Times

James L. Tullis, MD, was a leading blood researcher and made substantial contributions to the field of hematology. During his career, he developed a method of storing human red blood cells of rare blood types for clinical use. Dr. Tullis also worked closely with Edward Cohn to create the Cohn fractionator.

Dr. Tullis decided to become a physician while growing up in Ohio, and he was the first in his family to do so. After receiving his medical degree from Duke University in 1940, Dr. Tullis completed his training at Roosevelt Hospital in New York and during World War II as a captain in the Army Medical Corps.

He joined the New England Deaconess Hospital in 1948 as a research fellow and worked to investigate the permeability of white blood cells. Dr. Tullis became the first president of ASH in 1959.