James Peter, M.D., Ph.D., Founder of Specialty Laboratories, Dies of Cancer
Peter Built His Company into a Major National Esoteric Laboratory
One of laboratory medicine’s most successful scientist-entrepreneurs died last Friday, October 30, 2009. James B. Peter M.D., Ph.D., Founder of Specialty Laboratories, Inc., died in his home in Santa Monica, California of complications from cancer. He was 76 years old.
A native of Omaha, Nebraska, it was 1958 when Peter earned his M.D. from St. Louis University. He then went to the University of Minnesota where he earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1963. It was here that he worked with Professor Paul D. Boyer, Ph.D., a laureate for the 1997 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Peter also worked with Boyer at UCLA. At UCLA, Peter served as Professor, Clinical Professor, and College of Letters and Sciences Advisory Board Member. He had a strong interest in clinical chemistry and immunology.
