Conversations with French Medical Geneticists. A Personal Perspective on the Origins and Early Years of Medical Genetics in France.

Conversations with French Medical Geneticists. A Personal Perspective on the Origins and Early Years of Medical Genetics in France. Clin Genet. 2017 Nov 03;: Authors: Harper PS Abstract The history of the beginnings of medical genetics in France is discussed, based on the personal perspective provided by recorded interviews with 16 early French workers in the field. The weakness of French genetics overall up to the beginning of the Second World War meant that post-war medical genetics had to start from new, with its origins largely derived from the medical fields of child health and the prevention of genetic disorders, rather than from basic science. The key people responsible for initiating these developments were Robert Debré and Maurice Lamy at Hôpital Necker in Paris and those interviewed included a number of their colleagues and successors, including Jean Frézal, Pierre Maroteaux, Josué Feingold, André and Joelle Boué, and Jean-Claude Kaplan. A separate group of paediatricians, originally at Hôpital Trousseau under Raymond Turpin, including Jérôme Lejeune, Marthe Gautier and Roland Berger, was responsible for major advances in human cytogenetics. Outside Paris, workers were interviewed from Marseille, Strasbourg and Nancy, though not from Lyon, where Jacques-Michel Robert was an early pioneer, particularly of genetic counselling. Challenges in the development of medical genetics in France included the advent of prenatal...
Source: Clinical Genetics - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Clin Genet Source Type: research