The Ambassadors - MEGASTARS - Vol.2, Issue 2 (April 1999)

The six decade scientific journey of the 79-year-old Canadian Professor Clarke Fraser (FCF) showed that he is a lucky teratogeneticist, syndromologist, teacher and father. The BSc, MSc, PhD, MD, DSc emeritus professor at McGill university was selected as president of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) which offered him its award because of his fascinating contribution to both human and medical genetics. He was also offered the March of Dimes award and the Order of Canada.

Who is who?

FCF was born in 1920 to a disciplinary mother with a university degree in music and a quiet father who loved poetry and his work as the Canadian Trade Commissioner. He never forgets his grandfather's home near Bear river, Nova Scotia at the western end of the Annapolis valley, and his warm loving and gracious family that he always remembered with affection and gratitude.

His journey with plant, Drosophila (fruit fly), mice, and human genetics showed that he is a lucky man. He is the author and co-author of more than 300 published studies, three medical genetics textbooks and papers on more than fifty syndromes. He is the founder of the human genetics department at McGill university in montreal nearly half a century ago. He is the biological father of Norah, Noel, Alan and Scott: three of whom are professional musicians and the fourth a fish ecologist. All like their parent enjoyed getting absorbed in something. He is the academic father for thousands who were challenged by his publications in teratogenetics and his humanitarian approach in opposition to the eugenics movement.

FCF in military uniform, 55 years ago with his sister Mary

FCF completed his honors BSc from Acadia University with a thesis that reported the chromosomal number of an obscure water plant. His work with plant genetics increased his consciousness of the extraordinary beauty, variety and richness of living things. He then moved on to enroll in an MSc program in Montreal's McGill University where he studied the effects of chromosome inversions in Drosophila.

Upon his completion of the MSc, FCF continued to obtain his PhD from McGill university. His PhD theses tackled various hair and skin mutations in mice by the histological examination of skin grafts. In 1950, FCF graduated from McGill Medical School. This helped him to start the medical genetics unit at the Montreal Children's Hospital (MCH) in conjunction with the pediatric department.

FCF's work with plant, Drosophila, mice genetics offered him the talents as an experimental geneticist. He was interested in Joseph Warkany's early teratological experiments and his riboflavin induced malformations in mice. This challenged him to publish with Baxter their findings of cortison-induced cleft palate in mice. His experimental studies in teratology helped him to develop the multi-factorial model and apply it to facial clefts. He was interested in different teratogens like thalidomide, agent orange, 6AN etc. When he joined the Royal Canadian Forces he was one of the scientists studying the biological effects of the recently invented DDT on Drosophila.

Throughout the years, FCF doing his mice-breeding experiments and the habits of checking the mice every morning and setting up the new matings himself, this led to his development of CL/Fr and CW/Fr strains with high cleft lip and cleft palate frequences respectively. Both new strains helped as animal models in experimental studies of both malformations.

Forty-five years ago, he published an important valuable paper in genetic counselling reporting recurrence risks of 250 pediatric diseases in the Journal of Pediatrics. In 1958, the French scientist Jerome Lejeune reported in a seminar at McGill's genetics department his discovery of the first chromosomal abnormality in man, an extra chromosome in patients with Down Syndrome. FCF says, "I still remember the excitement though some were skeptical. They said Down Syndrome was more likely to be a dominant mutation. Skepticism seems to be an almost automatic reaction to any new finding. It is difficult to strike a balance between skepticism and gullibility. An excess of either can be harmful." In 1961, his department became involved in human cytogenetics when Louis Dallaire started his PhD research looking for translocations in the parents of sibs with multiple congenital anomalies.

After Charles Scriver had his training in Harvard and London universities he returned to McGill. FCF wrote in his autobiography entitled "Of Mice and Children: Reminiscences of a teratogeneticist which was published in Issues and Reviews in Teratology (1990) . "When Scriver returned as chief resident at MCH with the idea of setting up a biochemical genetics lab, I welcomed it with the greatest enthusiasm. The two groups biochemical and clinical co-existed happily as a medical genetics team. Scriver considered me as somewhat of an academic father figure (an honour, as both his biological parents were McGill gold medalists, as was he himself.)" The announcement of the treatment of PKU, the dramatic response to phenylalanine-free diet gave medical genetics a big boost in the eyes of physicians, as it was a dramatic evidence that genetic diseases were treatable.

FCF is convinced his success is a result of lucky circumstance. He says, "it is interesting to reflect upon how much one's successes and failures are governed by chance. I was certainly lucky in the beginning of my career, just at the time when both medical genetics and teratology were just about to take off, so I was able to get in on the ground floor. This may be why I was the youngest president of both the ASHG and Teratology Society in successive years. I was also the only president of the ASHG who composed and sang a song dedicated to the ASHG as part of the presidential address. The song predicted the use of genetic engineering to transform genes."

There are genes that make you happy
There are genes that make you blue,
There are genes that tell you who's your father
And how you'll rate on your I.Q.

There are genes that make your blood clot quickly
And genes that tell how much you'll weigh
But if you don't like the genes you're born with
Try A.S.H.G. DNA

Professor Clarke Fraser is lucky to meet and interact with the "BIG NAMES" in the ASHG, Canadian College of Medical Geneticists, March of Dimes, Teratology Society, and WHO meetings in addition to the distinguished visitors to McGill University eg. Joseph Warkany, David Smith, Victor Mckusick, Cedric Carter, Margaret Thompson, Charles Epstein, Charles Scriver, Leonard Pinsky, Judith Hall, Jan Mohr, Der Kaloustian, Hamerton, Ahmed Teebi,...etc.

Since establishing his legacy as the academic father for all his students and younger colleagues, remembers everyone. The first PhD student in human genetics in McGill was J. Metrakos who studied twins as as ascertained from the hospital. His wife, Katherine, studied the genetics of epilepsy. His encouragement to hundreds of biologists and medical doctors helped to create an excellent reputation for McGill-human/medical genetics departments.

He was lucky to be one of the great academics who supported the strongest ties between scientistists and medical geneticists working in the MCH and in the university since he is convinced that it is healthy to maintain the roots in basic genetics. Also he is lucky because in the dark era of the eugenics movement, when the world was polluted by Nazi ideals, he was an anti-eugenics scientist.

"Why did I choose to do the things I have done? Why have I worked so hard at them?" questions FCF.

FCF says some of his choices have been purely a result of chance. "If I had not gone into the air force, I would not have been able to finance medical school. If Happy Baxter had not come across cortisone, I might never have become interested in the palate."

He also says what motivated him to excel is his outright curiousity. He says, "it is fun to solve puzzles, and to see whether your logical deductions, or intuitive hunches work out."

Professor Fraser is convinced that research is an amazing way to challenge and help one's mind focus on something. "I hope I never stop."

With these mere few words, The Ambassadors has only scratched the surface of a life journey filled with achievement, accomplishment, prestige, honesty, and idealism. We are delighted and honoured to have published a few pages from the life of the revered and venerated Canadian scientist, Frank Clarke Fraser.