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Concept
Alexander Gordon Bearn
Summary
Alexander Gordon Bearn informally Alick Bearn (March 29, 1923 – May 15, 2009), a physician, scientist and author, was professor at Rockefeller University and Cornell University Medical College. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and had been Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society. He died Friday, May 15, 2009, in Philadelphia. Prior to his death Bearn was working on a family history that followed the Bearn family from Béarn, France to Angus, Scotland and finally to the United States.
Bearn was educated in England at Epsom College, and received his M.B., B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of London. He came to the Rockefeller University in 1951 and began his work on the genetics of rare metabolic diseases. He spent a sabbatical term at the Galton Laboratory at the University of London in 1958–59. In 1964 he was called to the Rockefeller University as professor and senior physician.
In 1966 he became professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cornell University Medical College and physician-in-chief at New York Hospital. He founded the first human genetics laboratory at the Medical College, and with colleagues at the Rockefeller initiated the joint M.D./Ph.D. program at the institutions. He remained at Cornell until 1979 when he was named senior vice-president for medical and scientific affairs of Merck, Sharpe & Dohme, International Division, from which he retired in 1988.
His work in the area of human genetics and liver disease led him to define the genetic nature of Wilson's disease, which affects the liver and brain, and showed that the disease was associated with a deficiency in the blood of ceruloplasmin, a copper-binding protein. He also discovered that the urine level of B2 microglobulin, was a sensitive indicator of proximal renal tubular damage. This protein was later shown to be of great immunological importance as a part of the human leukocyte antigen histo-compatibility system. His laboratory also described a number of genetic variants in serum proteins that allowed for later work in serum enzymes.
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