Conversations with French Medical Geneticists. A Personal Perspective on the Origins and Early Years of Medical Genetics in France

The history of the beginnings of medical genetics in France is discussed, based on the personal perspective provided by recorded interviews with 16 early French workers in the field. The weakness of French genetics overall up to the beginning of the Second World War meant that post-war medical genetics had to start from new, with its origins largely derived from the medical fields of child health and the prevention of genetic disorders, rather than from basic science. The key people responsible for initiating these developments were Robert Debré and Maurice Lamy at Hôpital Necker in Paris and those interviewed included a number of their colleagues and successors, including Jean Frézal, Pierre Maroteaux, Josué Feingold, André and Joelle Boué, and Jean-Claude Kaplan. A separate group of paediatricians, originally at Hôpital Trousseau under Raymond Turpin, including Jérôme Lejeune, Marthe Gautier and Roland Berger, was responsible for major advances in human cytogenetics. Outside Paris, workers were interviewed from Marseille, Strasbourg and Nancy, though not from Lyon, where Jacques-Michel Robert was an early pioneer, particularly of genetic counselling.

Challenges in the development of medical genetics in France included the advent of prenatal diagnosis with its ethical issues, the emergence of medical genetics as a distinct specialty from paediatrics, and its spread from Paris across France. These and other aspects are described by those interviewed from their own experiences, given in the 'supplementary material', while the full edited transcripts for most interviews are accessible on the Web (http://ift.tt/2gZRksj).

'The early history of medical genetics in France is discussed in the context of recorded interviews with 16 early workers in the field, based principally but not exclusively in Paris. These origins and early years show considerable differences between France and other countries that are of international interest and deserve a more comprehensive study than the personal perspective given here can provide. Further recorded interviews with key workers across France still living will be of particular importance.

http://ift.tt/2it22I7