Willy Gepts

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Willy Gepts (born March  11, 1922 in Antwerp , †  January 31, 1991 ibid) was a Belgian pathologist and diabetes researcher . From 1965 he worked as a professor of pathology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and later at the newly founded Dutch- speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel . With his research on the pathological anatomy of the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas , he made important contributions to the view that is still valid today that the form of diabetes mellitus known as type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease .

Life

Willy Gepts was born in Antwerp in 1922 and studied medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), which he graduated in 1946. He then specialized in pathology and, in addition to his clinical work, devoted himself to researching the morphology of the islets of Langerhans located in the pancreas in various diseases in both patients and laboratory animals . To this end, he developed methods with which he could quantitatively record microscopic observations , which enabled him to determine the number of islets of Langerhans in the various forms of diabetes mellitus . He was able to show that the form defined as type 1 diabetes is characterized by a significant decrease in the number of islets. On the basis of these results, he completed his dissertation in 1957 .

In 1965 he was appointed professor of pathology at the newly founded Dutch- speaking section of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and four years later he became head of the pathology department at Brugmann University Hospital in Brussels . Together with other professors from the ULB, he campaigned for the establishment of an independent Dutch-speaking university in Brussels, which finally came into being in 1970 with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel . Between 1970 and 1980 he set up a laboratory for experimental pathology there to continue his research on the pathological anatomy of the pancreas, and was also the head of pathology at the University Hospital in Brussels . In addition, from 1974 to 1979 he was Vice Rector of the newly established university and devoted himself to the development of its medical faculty .

Willy Gepts was married and had four children. He died in his hometown in 1991.

Scientific work

After the American pathologist Philip Medford LeCompte described in a publication in 1959 an inflammation of the islets of Langerhans called insulitis in four patients with diabetes in childhood, Willy Gepts sent his dissertation to LeCompte together with a request to be able to examine tissue samples from these patients quantitatively. He received an invitation from LeCompte to do a three-month research stay in Boston , which resulted in a lifelong friendship and collaboration. In the years that followed, Willy Gepts continued LeCompte's work on tissue samples from Belgian patients who died shortly after the onset of diabetes in childhood.

In 1965 he published his results under the title "Pathologic anatomy of the pancreas in juvenile diabetes mellitus" in the journal Diabetes . This work is considered to be a milestone in research into diabetes mellitus to the present day , as it provided definitive evidence that inflammatory infiltration of cells of the immune system in and around the islets of Langerhans is characteristic of type 1 diabetes. In addition to the association of type 1 diabetes with certain genes of the HLA complex described by other authors in 1974 and the discovery of autoantibodies against the insulin-producing beta cells contained in the islets of Langerhans, which was published in the same year , Willy Gepts contributed decisively to the conception of type 1 diabetes as an autoimmune disease .

Awards

Willy Gepts was accepted into the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine in 1977. The European Association for the Study of Diabetes , as its president from 1981 to 1983, made him an honorary member.

Works (selection)

  • Particularly pathological ontleedkunde. Brussels 1972
  • Immunity and Autoimmunity in Diabetes Mellitus. Amsterdam and New York 1974 (as co-editor)
  • Insulin: Islet Pathology, Islet Function, Insulin Treatment. Gentofte and Stockholm 1976

literature

  • Daniel Pipeleers, Pierre Lefèbvre: Obituary: Willy Gepts 1922–1991. In: Diabetologia . 34/1991. Springer, p. 847, ISSN  0012-186X
  • Willy Gepts (March 11, 1922 to January 31, 1991). In: Negotiations of the German Society for Pathology. Volume 75. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-43-711410-7 , pp. 591-598
  • Edwin AM Gale: The Discovery of Type 1 Diabetes. In: Diabetes. 50/2001. American Diabetes Association , pp. 217-226, ISSN  0012-1797

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gepts, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian pathologist and diabetologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1991
Place of death Antwerp