Edmund Klein
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Edmund Klein (born October 22, 1922 in Vienna , † July 23, 1999 in Buffalo (New York) ) was an American doctor ( oncology , dermatology ). He is considered a pioneer in cancer immunology and the chemotherapeutic treatment of skin cancer.
Life
Klein was the son of the Jewish scholar and cantor David Klein and Helen Bibelman Klein and escaped persecution by the National Socialists with his sister in 1938 after Austria's annexation to England (his parents stayed behind). He emigrated from England to Canada and studied, although penniless, at the University of Toronto with a bachelor's degree in 1947. He then studied medicine with an MD under Charles Best in 1951. He then conducted research at Harvard University and from 1952 to 1958 at Children´ s Medical Center in Boston. 1956 to 1959 he completed a residency in dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital . From 1959 he was Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Tufts University Medical School. From 1961 he headed dermatology at the Roswell Park Memorial Institute (now the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo (New York) ), which was the first such center in the USA to be fully dedicated to cancer research. He was head of dermatology until 1982 and remained active in research afterwards.
He had been married to Martha Alice Doble since 1952 and had five children.
plant
Together with Isaac Djerassi, he was involved in the development of separation processes in the 1950s that made it possible to break down blood into its constituent parts (plasma, platelets, white and red blood cells), which laid the foundation for individual blood instead of whole blood Blood components could be transfused. For this he received a prize from the International Society of Hematology in 1956.
At the Roswell Park Memorial Institute he developed a skin cancer treatment with the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil . For this he won the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1972 . He was also a staunch supporter of cancer immunotherapy and was one of the first to conduct clinical research on the use of lymphocytes against cancer. He campaigned in public to raise awareness of the dangers of sunbathing for skin cancer. He also developed effective therapy for Kaposi's sarcoma with low doses of vinblastine (the disease became of greater concern with the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s).
A controversy surrounding the treatment of President Lyndon B. Johnson received public attention . Klein had claimed in Reader's Digest in July 1977 (four years after the president's death) that the president's doctors had consulted him about the president's skin cancer and that he had recommended an operation, which was carried out. Klein said he was authorized to disclose by Johnson's family, but they and the president's doctor denied that they had skin cancer.
In the mid 1960s, he pioneered the use of lasers in dermatology in animal experiments, for which he received an award from the American Society of Laser Medicine and Surgery in 1986.
literature
- JL Ambrus, Robert A. Schwartz: Edmund Klein, MD (1921-1999), Journal of Medicine, Volume 30, 1999, pp. 291-298,
- Schwartz: Edmund Klein (1921-1999), Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Volume 44, April 2001, pp. 716-718.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Klein, Edmund |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American medic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 22, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 23, 1999 |
| Place of death | Buffalo (New York) |