MEGASTARS

Samia Temamy & Fawziya Hussein: 
The Pioneering Quest of Two Women Scientists

By Prof. Talaat I. Farag

 

Samia A. Temtamy and Fawzia H. Hussein are two women pediatricians who chose early in their careers to specialize in areas of great complexity. They were born in country with the first evidence of first woman doctor "Pessy Shet", whose representations appear on Ancient Egyptian reliefs dating back more than 3000 years. Prof. Samia Temtamy traveled to the US in 1961 to do postgraduate studies in medical and human genetics and received her PhD in 1966 from Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Fawzia Hussein went to Czechoslovakia to specialize in physical anthropology earning her PhD in 1973. Fortunately, their paths converged in the National Research Center (Egypt), succeeding through their cooperation and camaraderie to create schools of scientists in both fields. They published together some seminal works on the maladies of ancient and modern populations and succeeded to create a hybrid between human genetics and physical anthropological research. The culmination of this hybrid was the first conference that brought these two disciplines together which was organized by these two pioneering Egyptian women. The symbol of the conference was the statue of the dwarf Seneb's family reflecting the interest of Ancient Egyptians in studying pedigrees and recording genetic abnormalities. Ironically, while the first syndromologist was the ancient Egyptian artist, this year we celebrate the 46th anniversary of Tjio and Levan's discovery of the normal number of human chromosomes in somatic cells (46 chromosomes).

 
Pessy Shet - The first woman doctor in history

In December 1989 at the Nile Hilton the conference met with a gathering of more than 200 international scientists from 30 countries. Among these were eleven distinguished guests: from the USA Profs. Victor A. McKusick, R. Neil Schimke, and Carlos Salinas; from Canada Prof. Judith Hall; from UK. Profs. Rodney Harris and William Hamilton; from France Profs. Jean De Grouchy and Marc Fellous; from Germany Profs. Wolf Th. Endres and Udo Wendel; and from Australia Danuta Loesch. Distinguished scientists from other countries presented their studies from Brazil, Cuba, Denmark, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Spain.

In the conference's inauguration session, Prof. Samia Temtamy mentioned that "as it is true for science in general and for human genetics and anthropology in particular, scientific applications have to cross national boundaries and mutual benefit between advanced and developing countries should be the rule. These applied sciences are for humanity as a whole"

Prof. McKusick gave the inaugural lecture entitled "Medical Genetics from pedigrees to DNA: A prospective on the last 40 years with a look to the future." The conference recognized the importance of pre-marital counseling, neonatal screening, genetic registry for malformed babies, the importance of teaching human genetics to undergraduate medical students and in secondary schools. Lead-free fuel was also recommended as a replacement for available fuel types to reduce its mutagenic and carcinogenic effects. They also discussed the problems of high consanguinity rates among inbred populations and genetic isolates in Japan, Canada, Lebanon, and Kuwait. 


Prof. Samia Temtamy with the father of medical genetics, Prof. Victor A. McKusick


Prof. Samia Temtamy - The International Dysmorphologist

In her career, Dr. Samia Temtamy, professor emeritus of human genetics at the National Research Center in Egypt (NRC), received honors and prizes from Austria, Britain, Egypt, Germany, Japan, Spain and USA. The distinguished scientist who was offered the highest state award in medical sciences by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (2001) is the associate editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics and The European Journal of Human Genetics. Her major research interests are clinical genetics, genetic studies in birth defects, mutagenesis, dermatoglyphics, and human DNA technology.

She started as a pediatrician in Cairo University hospitals before moving to the National Research Center and joining the department of medical genetics, John Hopkins University working with Victor A. McKusick, the father of modern medical genetics between 1961 and 1966. McKusick recognized her diagnostic talents and helped her to become an international dysmorphologist. In 1978 they co-authored their key textbook "The Genetics of Hand Malformations" which was republished in 2001. She is the first Arab scientist to diagnose and delineate many new autosomal recessive syndromes as a consequence of high prevalence of consanguinity among Egyptians. In the NRC, she succeeded to build a team scientists in the different disciplines of human genetics: clinical, cytogenetics, biochemical, dental and molecular and is considered as the founder of human genetics as a science and practice in Egypt. Her excellent studies with her colleague and friend Prof. Fawzia Hussein, the distinguished bioanthropologist, have enriched genetic research around the world.

Prof. Temtamy has more than 200 papers published in national and international medical journals. She supervised more than 200 PhD, MD, and MSc degrees and theses in various medical specialties, including human genetics, experimental mutagenesis, pediatrics, opthalmology, pathology, andrology, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, biochemistry, dentistry and clinical pathology and psychiatry. She is a fellow of 15 scientific associations including the the American, British and European associations of human genetics . She participated in over 50 conferences in Austria, Britain, Germany, Japan, Kuwait, Philippines, Spain, and the USA. Interestingly, her contributions to genetics have been very broad, having published, researched and studied within all aspects of medical and human genetics, leaving no branch untouched!!


Prof. Fawzia H. Hussein - The International Bioanthropologist

Dr. Fawzia Hussein is the professor of Physical Anthropology in the Biological anthropology department at the  National Research Center. She is a Member of the high committee of the Egyptian antiquities Organization. She has published excellent papers studying the Ancient Egyptian remains and the Egyptian Nubians. Some of her research projects include

She has supervised 48 PhD, MD and MSc degrees. Some of which were: 

She is a member of many scientific associations including the International Associations of Human Biologists and Egyptologists, International Union of Anthropological an Ethnological Sciences, and the Paleopathology Association. She was a guest speaker in 25 international conferences in Austria, Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Poland, USA.

Prof. Hussein is the author and co-author of sixty one publications to her name. Most notable is her work in Egyptian Nubia and her paleopathological studies of the skeletal remains of ancient Egyptians from old and new kingdoms. Some of her interesting studies include those on: pyramid builders, remains from tomb No. 55 in the Valley of the kings, the mummy of Amenhotep III,  achnodoplastic Old Kingdom dwarf from Giza, the Royal Mummies in the Egyptian Museum, Amenhotep II, Thutmose TV, and Amenhotep III, The identification of the Eighteenth dynasty Royal Mummies.


The Saga of HM Queen of Punt!!

The cooperation between these two great world-renowned pediatricians and academics helped in solving many scientific puzzles. Both of them are highly interested in the precise delineation of "Maladies of Ancient Egyptians" in addition in studying contemporary medical problems like infertility, repeated pregnancy loss, major congenital anomalies, short stature, primary amenorhea, mental retardation and intersex. 

Interestingly, with my colleague and friend Prof. M.K.Booz (orthopedics), we found that the relief of the Queen of Punt in the Egyptian Museum was labeled as elephantiasis. This diagnosis was written since the opening of the museum 100 years ago. Both of us are not convinced with this diagnosis. Though HM Queen of Punt relief shows apparent pathological obesity, yet there is also marked lumbar hyperlordosis and multiple bilateral swellings with special distribution all over her body except in the hands and feet. We decided that it was imperative to go to the National Research Center to consult with the highly distinguished syndromologists and diagnosticians Prof. Samia Temtamy and Prof. Fawzia Hussien. In October 2002, we met with them to discuss this issue. We had taken with us the recently published book "Orthopedic Surgery Past and Present: An Anthological Study" by Prof. Abdelhay Mashhoor which includes a photo of HM Queen of Punt. The two distinguished scientists agreed that the case is definitely NOT elephantiasis. They also emphasized that the precise diagnosis cannot be reached since the mummy has not been discovered yet. We discussed together more than 20 different possibilities in the differential diagnosis of this interesting case. [T. I. Farag, M.A. Sabry & A. Iskandar (1999). Queen of Punt Syndrome. Am J Hum Genet (suppl.): A803].

There is no doubt that the solid cooperation between Prof. Zahi Hawaas, the distinguished Egyptologist and both Prof. Samia Temtamy and Prof. Fawzia Hussein, will help to solve the saga of HM Queen of Punt's alleged pathology and offer a better understanding of the maladies of ancient Egyptians!

 
Prof. M.K.Booz, Prof. Zahi Hawaas, and Prof. Abdelhay Mashhoor

Prof. Talaat I. Farag, MD, FRCP(Edin), FACP, FACMG is a community geneticist and syndromologist. He is the founder of The Ambassadors Research Foundation (1998) and chief editor of The Ambassadors Magazine. Email: drfarag@ambassadors.net


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