A Personal Tribute to Frank A. Gotch and Lee W. Henderson, Giants in Dialysis and in Life

membranes. My studies led to the conclusion that the sieving properties of a given membrane were dependent on the blood flow rate, wall shear rate, and protein concentration polarization at the blood-membrane interface. Lee spent an entire afternoon with me, analyzing the data and discussing the content of my research with humility and comprehension, treating me as his peer ( Fig. 1 ). We eventually met again in New York where Juan Bosch and I organized the first world congress on continuous arteriovenous hemofiltration. Again, he was kind enough to discuss our latest studies with us, this time on the peritoneal membrane permeability to sodium linked to a possible Donnan effect. On both occasions, I was struck by his power of intelligence, passion, dedication, and commitment to educate and disseminate knowledge. We met several times during the following years and he always had words of encouragement and motivation for my research. At the end of his official career, we met on a special occasion when the old group of hemofiltration gathered for a celebration in honor of Michael Lysaght ( Fig. 2 ). His great intelligence In the course of my career in dialysis, I have had the privilege of meeting some of the real pioneers of the field, such as Pim Kolff and Belding Scribner. I have discussed dialysis evolution with George Schreiner and Jack Maher, and have shared important conversations on peritoneal dialysis with Dimitri Oreopoulos and Karl Nolph. They have all since passed away, but have left an indelible mark in the field of renal replacement therapy and dialysis. Two individuals in particular had a remarkable impact on my life as an investigator, physician, and human being. They are Frank Gotch and Lee Henderson. There will follow many obituaries about them and many commentaries on their scientific contributions, which completely changed the history of dialysis. I would, however, like to take advantage of the privilege of being the chief editor of this journal by writing a few lines offering a personal perspective on these great men, both of whom we are going to miss incredibly. I met Lee for the first time as a young and inexperienced investigator when we organized the first congress of the International Society of Hemofiltration (that subsequently became the International Society of Blood Purification) in Cortina in 1982. He was an established and well-reputed leader, while I was making my first steps in research, studying the sieving profile of highly permeable Published online: August 31, 2017