Victor A. McKusick Professorship in Medicine & Genetics

VICTOR A. McKUSICK, Med 1946, widely recognized as the father of medical genetics, spent his entire career at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Peers credit him with almost singlehandedly introducing and demonstrating the importance of genetics in the practice of medicine. He became the first to describe the cluster of characteristics of Marfan syndrome, an inherited connective tissue disease. A key architect of the Human Genome Project and winner of the 2003 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific prize, the 1997 Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science, and numerous other honors, Dr. McKusick was perhaps best known for his multi-volume compendium of genetic disorders and genetic factors in disease. Known worldwide as “McKusick’s Catalogue,” now in its 12th edition, it is considered an essential tool of the medical geneticist. It can be found online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim/. In 2004 the Victor A. McKusick Professorship in Medicine and Genetics was established in his honor. Dr. McKusick died in 2008. (Dr. McKusick is pictured here, with chairholder Harry Dietz to his right.)