This award is intended for postdoctoral fellows holding appointments in the Basic Sciences and clinical Departments of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Alfred Blalock (1899 – 1964), a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1922, served as Director of the Department of Surgery at Hopkins. He is the most noted for his research on the medical condition of shock, and also for the development of the Blalock-Taussig Shunt, providing surgical relief of the cyanosis from Tetralogy of Fallot-known as the Blue Baby Syndrome-with Vivien Thomas and pediatric cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. The “Blue Baby” operation pioneered at Johns Hopkins launched the field of cardiac surgery.