Professor Victor A. McKusick
(1921-2008)

The Unforgettable Founder of Medical Genetics

By Prof. Talaat I. Farag

In this issue, we offer a supplement dedicated to the memory of a spectacular man who has left an indelible mark on the medical sciences. Prof. McKusick was the teacher of many generations of enterprising medical geneticists for over half a century. He is the author of 13 books, the first in 1956 entitled "Heritable Disorders of Connective Tissue" and the comprehensive gene encyclopaedia book (published in 12 editions first in 1966 and last in 1998) from the Johns Hopkins University Press. Following the final print, the database is now available free online at OMIM through the National Institute of Health portal and is updated continuously.

The exceptional professor of biology, medicine, and epidemiology has had a major contribution to syndromology and nosology. His unique studies of inbred populations including the Amish of Lancaster county PA has opened the door for the study of other inbred populations such as gypsies, Bedouins, Hutterites, Inuits, Australian Aborigines, French Acadians, and many genetic isolates in India, Iceland, Finland, and Japan. His book, Genetic Disorders Among the Amish Population is a valuable collection of some of his earliest studies.

Prof McKusick, was the co-founder and director of Bar Harbour Annual two-2eek short course on medical and experimental genetics organized by Johns Hopkins University, Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbour, and supported by the March of Dimes. He is the founder and president of the Human Genome Organization studying the Human Genome project.

The Ambassador Magazine in its January 2000 issue published his life story, "Rearing a Discipline" as part of its Megastars section and his journey with the chromosomology era, somatic cell hybridization era, molecular genetics era, and the era of the Human Genome Project. This supplement is dedicated to this unforgettable man and features four articles that includes three essays written recently about this remarkable man, the first by one of his faithful students, Prof. Samia Temtamy, the second by the distinguished cytogeneticist and colleague Prof. Borgaonkar, and the third by the ophthalmic geneticist Dr. Hanan Bastawisy. We would like to invite all his colleagues, students, and followers to send us articles about the late Prof. McKusick for a forthcoming book entitled "Prof. Victor A. McKusick and the Inbred Populations" to this email.

When the teacher of my teachers discussed the evolution of medical genetics, he mentioned that the discipline had become medicalized, then sub-specialized, then professionalized, then molecularized and then commercialized. To avoid this final stage, Prof. McKusick made sure his most prized and valued work the encyclopaedic database of heritable diseases by both Mendelian and Mitochondrial genes was available free of charge online to all doctors and medical staff in every corner of the world.