Victor A. McKusick
Victor Almon McKusick ( born October 21, 1921 in Parkman, Maine, † July 22, 2008 in Towson, Maryland ) was an American geneticist.
He was the founder and long -time editor of Mendelian Inheritance in Man or its online edition Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a catalog of known human genes and hereditary diseases associated with them. Victor McKusick is regarded as the founders of the human genetics as a distinct discipline and has been awarded for his scientific achievements in the field of diagnosis and therapy of genetic diseases in many cases.
Life
Victor Almon McKusick was born in 1921 in Parkman in the U.S. state of Maine, the son of farmers who had previously been working as a teacher. He began in 1940 to study at Tufts University. In the fall of 1942 moved to the Johns Hopkins University, where he was admitted without undergraduate degree to study medicine because the university by the Second World War had caused a shortage of students. Original plans for a career as a general practitioner in his home state of Maine, he gave up in favor of a specialization in internal medicine. He was a cardiologist and was from 1948 to 1950 head of the department of cardiovascular disease at the Baltimore Marine Hospital.
Through the examination of a patient with the rare Peutz -Jeghers syndrome his interest for the study of genetic diseases, which influenced his scientific and medical work from the end of 1950-ies. He devoted himself throughout his career further the study and systematic recording of the causes and symptoms of various hereditary diseases and founded in 1957 the department of medical genetics at Johns Hopkins University, which he headed until 1973. In 1966, he was under the title " Mendelian Inheritance of Man " first published a list of known human genes and diseases associated with them. From this published until 1998, twelve printed editions, under the name " Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man ' ( OMIM ), a continuously updated online version is available. In addition, he was much involved in the development of the Human Genome project and the grounds of the journal " Genomics " and 1989 founding president of the Human Genome Organisation. From 1973 to 1985 he was chief physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He then worked at the Johns Hopkins University until shortly before his death as professor of medical genetics.
Victor McKusick died in 2008 in Towson on cancer-related complications. He was married in 1949 and had with his wife, two sons and a daughter. His twin brother Vincent was a lawyer and worked among other things as a presiding judge at the State of Maine Supreme Court.
Awards
Victor McKusick from 1973 was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Among the awards for his life's work included not only several honorary doctorates, among others, a Gairdner Foundation International Award and the William Allan Award (both 1977), the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing (1982 ), the Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award (1997), the National Medal of Science ( 2001) and the Japan Prize in medical genomics and Genetics ( 2008). According to him are named with the metaphyseal chondrodysplasia from the McKusick - type and the McKusick -Kaufman syndrome, two rare genetic disorders, a chair and an institute at Johns Hopkins University.
Works (selection)
- Mendelian Inheritance in Man. Baltimore 1966-1998
- Human Genetics. Englewood Cliffs 1969
- Heritable Disorders of Connective Tissue. St. Louis 1972
- Medical and Experimental Mammalian Genetics. New York 1987