Alexander Gordon Bearn

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Alexander Gordon Bearn (born March 29, 1923 in Cheam , Surrey , England , † May 15, 2009 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , United States) was a British-American medical doctor and geneticist . He was engaged in research into Wilson's disease , for which he found new diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

Bearn received his medical doctorate from the University of London in 1950 . The following year he went to New York City and became an assistant professor at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research . There he specialized in hereditary diseases and in 1957 founded one of the first laboratories for human genetics in the USA. Bearn realized that Wilson's disease is an autosomal recessive hereditary disease. Through his research he contributed to the convergence of the disciplines genetics and medicine, which were still strictly separate in the 1950s. In 1964 he was appointed professor of medicine, in 1966 he moved to Cornell University .

In 1971 he became president of the American Society of Human Genetics. In 1972 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences . From 1979 to 1988 he was Senior Vice President for medical and scientific affairs at Merck & Co, Inc. The American Philosophical Society awarded him the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2001 .

Publications

  • Sir Archibald Garrod and the Individuality of Man , 1993
  • Sir Clifford Allbutt: Scholar and Physician , 2007
  • Sir Francis Richard Fraser: A Canny Scot Shapes British Medicine , 2008

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bearn, Alexander Gordon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American geneticist
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheam , Surrey , England
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2009
Place of death Philadelphia , Pennsylvania