John Marius Opitz

John Marius Opitz, 2017

John Marius Opitz (born August 15, 1935 in Hamburg ) is an American human geneticist and university professor of German descent.

Career

Opitz was born in Hamburg. From 1942 to 1950 went to school there. After that, his family moved to the United States. After attending high school, Opitz studied medicine at the University of Iowa until 1959 . He worked as an intern at the University of Iowa, where he trained as a pediatrician. Then Opitz went to the University of Wisconsin – Madison . There he became Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Genetics in 1972. He devoted himself to clinical genetics, together with David W. Smith , and cytogenetics with Klaus Pätau and Hans Ulrich Zellweger . He was a director at the Wisconsin Medical Genetics Center from 1974 to 1979. Then Opitz went to the Shodair Hospital in Helena (Montana) . There he was director of the State Genetic Care Center and Professor of Medical Genetics at Montana State University for 18 years . From 1976 to 2000 he was editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics . In 1997 Opitz went to Salt Lake City , where he became professor of paediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah .

Opitz is married to Susan, with whom he has a daughter.

His main focus was on hereditary diseases , where he dealt with the pathogenesis of malformations. He is the author or co-author of over 400 publications and around 50 book chapters. Some syndromes are first described by his name. For example, the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome , the Opitz trigonocephaly syndrome ( C syndrome ), the Opitz-Kaveggia syndrome ( FG syndrome ), the N syndrome (synonym: Opitz N syndrome) and the Opitz BBB / G syndrome . Opitz was one of the first doctors to recognize the connection between the specific grouping of anomalies and their inheritance. In 1965 he was the first to recognize the X-linked inheritance of Fabry's disease through family tree analysis .

In 1985 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 2005 Opitz received the GfH Medal of Honor from the German Society for Human Genetics (GfH) . In 2011 he received the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics .

Web links

• John Marius Opitz whonamedit.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} German Society for Human Genetics: Winner of the GfH Medal of Honor - Professor John Marius Opitz. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
2. ↑ JM Opitz, FC Stiles u. a .: The Genetics of Angiokeratoma Corporis Diffusum (Fabry's Disease) and Its Linkage Relations with the Xg Locus. In: American Journal of Human Genetics . Volume 17, Number 4, July 1965, pp. 325-342, ISSN  0002-9297 . PMID 17948499 . PMC 1932618 (free full text).
3. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. John M. Opitz (with picture) at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on July 15, 2016.
4. ^ University of Utah Health: World-Renowned U of U Medical Geneticist John M. Opitz, MD, to Receive 2011 William Allan Award In Human Genetics for Pioneering Work Identifying, Understanding Genetic Syndromes. ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. October 7, 2011, accessed October 9, 2011.