Bengt Robertson

Bengt A. Robertson (born September 14, 1935 in Stockholm ; † December 7, 2008 ibid) was a Swedish physician ( pediatric pathology ).

Life

Robertson graduated from high school in Stockholm in 1953 and studied medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, graduating with an MD in 1960. In 1968 he received a Ph. D. at the Karolinska Institute ( The intrapulmonary arterial pattern in normal infancy and in transposition of the great arteries ). In 1970 he was a doctor for pediatric pathology at St. Göran Hospital in Stockholm and from 1974 to 2000 he headed the Experimental Perinatal Pathology Department at the Karolinska Institute and from 1994 to 1997 he headed the Pediatric Pathology Department. From 2000 he received the title of professor. In 1976 he was visiting professor at the University of Toronto and in 1985 and 1987 in Perugia .

Robertson is known for his research into surfactants (whose role in lung function was recognized by the Swede Kurt von Neergaard in 1929 ), which enabled the development of therapies for premature babies with respiratory problems ( respiratory distress syndrome, RDS) due to the lack of surfactants in the lungs . (The cause of IBS in missing surfactants was recognized by Mary Ellen Avery and Mead in 1959.) Robertson and Göran Enhorning discovered in the 1970s that natural surfactants could be used as therapy for premature babies in rabbits and developed them with Tore Curstedt of the Karolinska Institute he later developed the drug Curosurf (named after its first letter) from surfactants in the pig's lungs, which is used in neonatology . In 1988 he headed an international control study for Curosurf that demonstrated its effectiveness.

Robertson has authored and co-authored 5 books and over 700 scientific publications.

In 1996 he received the König Faisal Prize for Medicine with Tetsuro Fujiwara . He has been a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (RCPE) since 1996 and an honorary member of the Italian Society for Perinatal Medicine since 1987. In 1998 he received the Hilda and Alfred Eriksson Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in 2004 with Curstedt the Lars Werko Prize and in 2002 the Maternité Prize of the European Association for Perinatal Medicine.

He was an amateur musician (piano, flute, trumpet, bass tuba) in the Jubilee Jazz Band , who played Dixieland jazz and also published short stories and poetry ( Nachspiel 1967, Nefertites Öga 1970, Naturens Gong 1975). He was a member of the Swedish Haiku Society.

Robertson was married twice and had four children from his first marriage and four from his second marriage to the pediatric surgeon Gertie Grossmann.

A prize from the European Society for Pediatric Research is named after him.

Fonts

Microangiography of the lung in infancy and childhood, Stockholm 1973
with Lambert van Golde, Joseph J. Batenburg (editors): Pulmonary surfactant: from molecular biology to clinical practice , New York, Elsevier 1984, 1992
with H. William Taeusch: Surfactant therapy for Lung Disease , Informa Healthcare 1995

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Robertson, Bengt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Robertson, Bengt A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swedish medic
DATE OF BIRTH	September 14, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH	December 7, 2008
Place of death	Stockholm