Sydney M. Finegold

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Sydney Martin Finegold (born August 12, 1921 in New York City - † September 17, 2018 ) was an American internist , microbiologist and immunologist .

life and career

Finegold was born on August 12, 1921 in Far Rockaway, Queens , New York . His parents, Samuel and Jennie, came from Russia and were both trained pharmacists. Sidney had a brother Harold and a sister Pearl.

Around 1932 the family moved to Los Angeles, Sydney Finegold studied bacteriology at UCLA and passed an examination as a Bacteriology Major in 1943. During World War II , Finegold served in the Marine Corps of the US Navy from 1943 to 1945 . In 1947 he married Mary Louise Saunders, with whom he had three children: Joseph Gregory (* 1950), Patricia Pearl (* 1951) and Michael James (* 1958). He graduated from the University of Texas in 1949 with a medical exam . In 1951 he published his first paper: Studies on Antibiotics and the Normal Intestinal Flora . In 1952 and 1953 he took part in the Korean War as a regimental surgeon . From 1954 Finegold worked as a doctor in the department of infectious diseases at Wadsworth VA Hospital in Los Angeles and later became its chief physician. In 1955 he began to teach at the UCLA School of Medicine, where he was Professor of Medicine from 1968 and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology from 1983. In 1971 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

In 1994 Sydney Finegold married Gloria Helene Weiss for the second time.

Finegold retired from UCLA in 2000 at the age of 79 in order to concentrate on his research.

He died on September 17, 2018 at the age of 97.

plant

Sydney Finegold researched mainly on anaerobic bacteria, the intestinal flora and their influence on human health. In recent years he has focused on the relationship between clostridia and autism .

Previous autism research has primarily looked for genetic causes for the disease. Finegold also assumed a genetic predisposition , but saw autism also influenced by the environment. There is evidence that embryos and infants may develop immune defenses in response to infection, leading to autism; several autistic children show gastrointestinal abnormalities. Finegold and some of his colleagues (Emma Allen-Vercoe, Derrick MacFabe, Tore Mildtveit) assumed that regressive autism (in the course of which children lose skills that they had already acquired) is mainly due to the overgrowth of certain bacteria in the children's intestines and this growth is in turn triggered by treating the children with antimicrobial drugs ( antibiotics ) given to them as therapeutic agents for the infection.

Finegold saw the following pattern: An infant has an infection. The doctor gives him an antibiotic against it. This kills certain bacteria, but spares others. The balance in the intestine shifts towards the spared bacteria; these multiply and trigger regressive autism. Exactly how the proliferating bacteria trigger the disease is still being researched. MacFabe examined clostridia and their breakdown product propionic acid (see propionic acid fermentation ).

Sydney Finegold published around 40 books and monographs and several hundred articles.

Web links

literature

  • RH Sandler, SM Finegold u. a .: Short-term benefit from oral vancomycin treatment of regressive-onset autism. In: Journal of child neurology. Volume 15, Number 7, July 2000, pp. 429-435, ISSN  0883-0738 . PMID 10921511 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary , accessed November 6, 2018
  2. ^ Finegold SM, Dowd SE, Gontcharova V, Liu C, Henley KE, Wolcott RD. Pyrosequencing study of fecal microflora of autistic and control children . Anaerobes 2010, 16: 444-453. Abstract
  3. ↑ MacFabe DF, Cain DP, Rodriguez-Capote K, Franklin AE, Hoffman JE, Boon F. Neurobiological effects of intraventricular propionic acid in rats: possible role of short chain fatty acids on the pathogenesis and characteristics o autism spectrum disorders . Behav Brain Res 2007, 176 (1): 149-169. Abstract
personal data
SURNAME Finegold, Sydney M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finegold, Sydney Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American internist, microbiologist, and immunologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 2018