Clarke Fraser

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Frank Clarke Fraser OC FRSC (29 March 1920 – 17 December 2014) was a Canadian medical geneticist. Spanning the fields of science and medicine, he was Canada's first medical geneticist, one of the creators of the discipline of medical genetics in North America, and laid the foundations in the field of Genetic Counselling, which has enhanced the lives of patients worldwide. Among his many accomplishments, Fraser pioneered work in the genetics of cleft palate and popularized the concept of multifactorial disease.^[1]

Biography

Born in

• 1950: joined McGill University as an assistant professor of genetics.
• 1955: appointed an Associate and in 1960 was made a full professor.
• 1970-82 was the Molson Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biology.
• 1973–82, was also a professor of Paediatrics.
• 1979–82, Professor in the McGill Centre for Human Genetics.
• 1979 Founding co-director of the Medical Research Council of Canada Group in Medical Genetics, the longest lasting group in the history of the MRC.
• 1952-82 Founder and Director of the Department of Medical Genetics at the Montreal Children's Hospital.
• 1982–85, Professor of Clinical Genetics at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
• 1990–93, Director of the Genetics Working Group of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies.

Fraser has served as president of the major North American societies in Genetics and Teratology and has won almost every award in his field.

• 1966 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
• 1984 Officer of the Order of Canada.
• 1999 Government of Quebec's Prix Wilder-Penfield, awarded for achievement in the biomedical sciences.
• 2012 Elected to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

He has been awarded four honorary doctorates, from Acadia University (1967), SUNY at Potsdam, Dalhousie University (2003) and McGill University (2010).^{[citation needed]}

Fraser made contributions in three areas. He collected data on recurrence risks for a number of pediatric conditions, to answer the questions of the parents of affected children. He helped develop the principles of genetic counseling. He showed that cortisone, injected into pregnant mice, caused cleft palates in the offspring, and that the frequency of induced clefts varied with the genotype, thus bringing genetics into teratology. From this he developed the multifactorial threshold model that underlies many common familial conditions.^{[citation needed]}

Further reading

• "Canadian Who's Who 1997 entry". University of Toronto Press. Retrieved October 13, 2006.^{[permanent dead link]}
• "Prix du Québec". McGill Reporter. Retrieved October 13, 2006.
• "Canadian Medical Hall of Fame". Archived from the original on April 5, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2011.

References

External links

• Frank Clarke Fraser at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• F. Clarke Fraser fonds at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University.