Cyril Clarke

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Sir Cyril Astley Clarke KBE (born August 22, 1907 in Leicester , † November 21, 2000 in West Kirby , Merseyside ) was a British doctor, geneticist and lepidopterist (butterfly researcher). Clarke is best known for having developed a method to prevent neonatorial haemolytic disease in rhesus incompatibility .

Live and act

Clarke's father and grandfather were doctors in Leicester and his father, Astley Vavasour Clarke was a founding member of Leicester University and was a Leicester City Councilor. As a child, Cyril Clarke began collecting butterflies .

After a short stay at the University of Strasbourg in 1926 , Clarke went to Caius College at Cambridge University , where he obtained a degree in natural sciences in 1929. He then studied medicine at Guy's Hospital Medical School at King's College London until 1936 . In 1934 he married Frieda MM Hart († 1998); the couple had three sons. After a short internship as a resident, Clarke worked for a life insurance company until 1939, but earned his MD at Cambridge University in 1937 . During the Second World War he served as a military doctor in the Royal Navy . After the war he worked briefly at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham before joining the David Lewis Northern Hospital in Liverpool in 1946 as senior physician .

Papilio machaon

In his spare time, Clarke studied butterfly studies. In his greenhouse , Clarke and his wife developed a method for propagating Papilio machaon in captivity. Through cross-breeding experiments between the European P. machaon and the North American Papilio polyxenes , Clarke was able to show that the two species only differ in a single gene. From 1952 he worked with the geneticist Philip Sheppard (1921-1976). Together they published on the genetics of the swallowtails (Papilioninae) and their mimicry . Clarke also collaborated with geneticists such as Miriam Rothschild and Neville Marsh . Other important work by Clarke dealt with the industrial melanism of Biston betularia , the birch moth.

From the early 1950s, Clarke began to study human genetics . He first undertook population genetic studies in the Liverpool area to investigate the relationship between blood groups in the AB0 system , the formation of antibodies against other blood group characteristics and the incidence of diseases such as duodenal ulcer . Clarke later dealt with blood group incompatibilities between mother and unborn child, which lead to the disease haemolyticus neonatorum , in particular the Rhesus incompatibility . Based on the discovery that if there is an incompatibility in the AB0 system, child erythrocytes (red blood cells) are almost never detectable in the mother's blood, but otherwise in around 12% of cases, Clarke and Ronald Finn (his doctoral student) developed the following concept: By giving of rhesus antibodies (anti-D immunoglobulin ) to rhesus-negative mothers in connection with childbirth and other events in which infant erythrocytes can pass into the maternal circulation, these infant erythrocytes are eliminated before the mother forms its own antibodies that contribute to a subsequent pregnancy can spread to the fetus and cause haemolysis . Vincent J. Freda , John G. Gorman and William Pollack independently developed this method in the USA. The use of this anti-D prophylaxis reduced the rate of deaths from rhesus incompatibilities from 18.4 / 10,000 births (1977) to 1.3 / 10,000 births (1992). Clarke's later work looked at the familial form of esophageal cancer , spina bifida , asthma , schizophrenia, or longevity .

In 1958 Clarke received a position as a lecturer at Liverpool University and in 1965 a professorship. With the help of the Nuffield Foundation , he founded the Nuffield Institute of Medical Genetics in 1963 , which developed into a center for young human genetics in the UK. In 1972 Clarke retired . From 1970 to 1985 he was editor of the scientific journal Journal of Medical Genetics . From 1972 to 1977 he took over the presidency of the Royal College of Physicians , but served the college in the following years in various functions, including as director of the research department (1983–1988).

From 1991 to 1993 he was President of the Royal Entomological Society of London .

Awards (selection)

Fonts (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sir Cyril Astley Clarke, 1907-2000. In: genmedhist.eshg.org. Retrieved February 20, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b Professor Sir Cyril Clarke . In: The Telegraph . November 30, 2000.
  3. ^ Entry on Clarke; Sir; Cyril Astley (1907-2000) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
  4. ^ Cyril A. Clarke - Gairdner Foundation. In: gairdner.org. Retrieved April 5, 2018 .
  5. ^ Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award 1980 Winners at the Lasker Foundation (laskerfoundation.org); Retrieved December 22, 2012.
  6. ↑ Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society (royalsociety.org); Retrieved December 22, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Clarke, Cyril
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clarke, Cyril Astley; Astley Clarke, Cyril; Clarke, Cyril A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British doctor, geneticist and lepidopterist
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Leicester
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 2000
Place of death West Kirby , Merseyside