In memoriam Prof. Dr. Leo P. ten Kate
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OBITUARY
In memoriam Prof. Dr. Leo P. ten Kate Martina C. Cornel 1 & Lidewij Henneman 1
# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Leo Pieter ten Kate was born on 7 January 1940, at Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia. His father was a teacher in this former colony of The Netherlands. After the Second World War, the family moved back to The Netherlands. Once he finished medical school, Leo was trained in medical and clinical genetics by Professor George J.P.A. Anders at the Human Genetics Department of Groningen University, and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Division of Medical Genetics by Professor Arno G. Motulsky in Seattle, USA. In 1975 he published his PhD thesis: “The frequency of cystic fibrosis: a genetic epidemiological study”. Leo was very interested in population genetics. He investigated the birth prevalence of cystic fibrosis in the Netherlands, and arrived at an estimate of 1 in 3600 infants (Ten Kate 1977). This estimate was often cited in the decades thereafter, as well as
* Martina C. Cornel [email protected] 1
Department of Clinical Genetics, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute and Amsterdam Reproduction & Development Research Institute, Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
the derived carrier frequency — 2q = 1:30. Around that time, Leo tried to find a method for identifying cystic fibrosis in meconium samples as a neonatal screening method (Ten Kate et al. 1978). An earlier diagnosis would probably limit the health damage in these infants. It was only in 2011 that the Netherlands started cystic fibrosis screening in the national heelprick program, more than 30 years later. Obviously Leo was ahead of his time. After this first successful population genetics study in Groningen, it was clear that the European Registration of Congenital Anomalies and Twins (EUROCAT) project would also start its Netherlands pilot in Groningen, with Leo ten Kate as first project leader (Boyd et al. 2011). For more than 3 decades, children born in the northern provinces of the Netherlands have been registered. EUROCAT surveillance relates to three areas: prevalence, primary prevention, and prenatal screening. Thus, many of his interests came together in this project. In the middle of the 1980s, Leo’s work still included cystic fibrosis, and in 1985 it became clear, by important efforts of others, that the CFTR gene was located on chromosome number 7. DNA restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) were studied, to better define the precise location and to develop possibilities for prenatal diagnosis for families at risk. A major breakthrough for families and for the field of DNA diagnostics, several years before the identification of the gene in 1989. From 1989 until 1993, Leo was professor by special appointment in Groningen, supported by the Dutch Genetic Alliance VSOP, the Netherlands umbrella organization for parents and patients involved in rare and genetic disorders. It was clear to Leo that what is at stake in science is not only the discover
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