Tribute to Professor Victor A. McKusick

Professor Victor McKusick
HUGO President 1988-1991

We are deeply saddened to learn about the death of our Founder President, Professor Victor A. McKusick, M.D. who passed away on 22 July 2008 at his home in Towson, MD. As a University Professor of Medical Genetics in Johns Hopkins University, Prof McKusick not only contributed tremendously to the medical genetics research arena spanning his entire career at Johns Hopkins, he was also a major contributor towards the establishment of HUGO in 1988.

Professor McKusick’s key achievements included the development of the concept of heritable disorders of connective tissue on the basis of Marfan syndrome and related disorders in 1950s. In 1957, he founded a pioneer medical genetics unit in the Johns Hopkins Hospital for research, teaching and exemplary patient care in the area of genetic disease. His studies of the Old Order Amish in the 1960s were a model for work in similar groups elsewhere. With Donahue et al., he assigned a specific gene to a specific autosome for the first time (1968). With Ruddle, he organized annual or biennial international human gene mapping workshops beginning in 1973 for collation of the accumulating information. Some 700 genes or genetic phenotypes had been mapped to specific chromosomes by 1985-86 when the Human Genome Project was first formally discussed. In Sept. 1988, on the urging of colleagues, he convened a group of 31 geneticists and molecular biologists from 19 countries in Montreux, Switzerland, to organize HUGO and was the Founder President. He was probably best known for Mendelian Inheritance in Man (a catalogue of human genes and genetic disorders) and its internet version OMIM which he and his colleagues have maintained since the 1960s.

Sir Walter Bodmer, who succeeded Victor as President of HUGO, said of him, "Victor was an outstanding Medical Geneticist, indeed a role model for many. He had an enormous influence on the field, including his strong support for the Human Genome project and was the first President of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO). Victor’s passing away is really the end of an era. He had such an enormous influence on the development of medical genetics and was a friend and mentor to so many people. He and his wife Ann were most approachable and friendly people, and in Victor McKusick's death, I feel I have lost a real friend."

On behalf of HUGO, we would like to express our deepest condolences to Dr. Anne McKusick and family for the loss of a beloved husband, a mentor, and a world’s leading figure in medical genetics.

Edison Liu
President of HUGO