Frank Clarke Fraser

Frank Clarke Fraser's father was the Canadian Trade Commissioner, a man who loved poetry; his mother had a university degree in music. He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, but his family returned to Canada when he was an infant.

Fraser received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 1940 from Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, with a thesis on the chromosomal number of an obscure water plant. He then enrolled at the McGill University in Montreal. There he obtained his Master of Science degree in 1941 for his studies of the effects of chromosome inversions in Drosophila. During World War II he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. When he joined the Royal Canadian Forces he was one of the scientists studying the biological effects of the recently invented DDT on Drosophila.

In 1945, Fraser obtained his PhD with a thesis on various hair and skin mutations in mice by the histological examination of skin grafts.

He became interested in genetics as applied to human conditions as well as the genetics of malformations in mice, and entered the medical school at McGill. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from that university in 1950. He then joined McGill University as an Assistant Professor of Genetics. Two years later, at Montréal Children's Hospital, he was the founder of the first Canadian medical genetics department in a paediatric hospital. He was the director of this department until 1982. In 1955 he was appointed an Associate and in 1960 was made a full professor.

In 1958, the French scientist Jérôme Lejeune (1926-1994) reported in a seminar at McGill's genetics department his discovery of the first chromosomal abnormality in man, an extra chromosome in patients with Down's syndrome.

From 1985, Fraser was professor emeritus at McGill.

More of Clarke Fraser's career:
From 1970 to 1982: Molson Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biology.
From 1973 to 1982: Professor of Paediatrics.
From 1979 to 1982: Professor in the McGill Centre for Human Genetics.
From 1982 to 1985: Professor of Clinical Genetics at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
From 1990 to 1993: Director of the Genetics Working Group of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies.

Honours, honourable positions and awards:
1961-1962: President of the American Society of Human Genetics.
1962-1963: President of the Teratological Society.
1966: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
1980-1983: President of the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists
1984: Officer of the Order of Canada.
1999: The Government of Quebec's Prix Wilder-Penfield, awarded for achievement in the biomedical sciences.

He is the author and co-author of more than 200 published studies, three medical genetics textbooks and papers on more than fifty syndromes.

He has four children, three of whom are professional musicians and the fourth a fish ecologist.

"I still remember the excitement though some were skeptical. They said Down Syndrome was more likely to be a dominant mutation. Skepticism seems to be an almost automatic reaction to any new finding. It is difficult to strike a balance between skepticism and gullibility. An excess of either can be harmful."
On Jerôme Lejeune's discovery of the extra chromosome in patients with Down's Syndrome.

"It is interesting to reflect upon how much one's successes and failures are governed by chance. I was certainly lucky in the beginning of my career, just at the time when both medical genetics and teratology were just about to take off, so I was able to get in on the ground floor. This may be why I was the youngest president of both the ASHG and Teratology Society in successive years. I was also the only president of the ASHG who composed and sang a song dedicated to the ASHG as part of the presidential address. The song predicted the use of genetic engineering to transform genes."
(sung to the tune of "Smiles")
There are genes that make you happy
There are genes that make you blue,
There are genes that tell you who's your father
And how you'll rate on your I.Q.
There are genes that make your blood clot quickly
And genes that tell how much you'll weigh
But if you don't like the genes you're born with
Try A.S.H.G. DNA

"If I had not gone into the air force, I would not have been able to finance medical school. If Happy Baxter had not come across cortisone, I might never have become interested in the palate."

"It is fun to solve puzzles, and to see whether your logical deductions, or intuitive hunches work out."

• F C Fraser:
  The use of genetics in clinical medicine; recessive inheritance.
  McGill Medical Journal, Montreal, October 1949, 18: 176-182.
• J. W. Boyes, F C Fraser:
  A pedigree of hereditary progressive muscular dystrophy.
  Annals of Eugenics, London, October 1949, 15: 46-51.
• F. C. Fraser:
  The use of genetics in clinical medicine. IV. Sex-linked inheritance.
  McGill Medical Journal, October 1950, 19: 194-198.
• H. Baxter and F. C. Fraser:
  The production of congenital defects in the offspring of female mice treated with cortisone. A preliminary report.
  McGill Medical Journal, December 1950, 19: 345-249.
• F. C. Fraser:
  Skull of the fetal narwhal. Nature, London, May 12, 1951: 167: 765.
• F. C. Fraser:
  The use of genetics in clinical medicine; V. Taking the family history.
  McGill Medical Journal, October 1951, 20: 184-190.
• F. C. Fraser, T. D. Fainstat:
  Causes of congenital defects; a review. AMA American Journal of Diseases of Children, Chicago, November 1951, 82: 593-603.
• F. C. Fraser:
  Consanguinity and its significance in the family history.
  The Canadian Medical Association Journal, Toronto, March 1952, 66: 258-260.
• H. Kalter, F. C. Fraser:
  Production of congenital defects in the offspring of pregnant mice treated with compound F. Nature, April 19, 1952, 169: 665.
• J. Naiman, F. C. Fraser:
  Agenesis of the corpus callosum; a report of two cases in siblings.
  AMA Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, Chicago, August 1955, 74:182-185.
• L. Pinsky, F. C. Fraser:
  Congenital malformations after a two-hour inactivation of nicotinamide in pregnant mice.
  British Medical Journal, London, July 16, 1960, 5193: 195-197.
• J. R. Miller, F. C. Fraser, D. W. Macewan:
  The frequency of spina bifida occulta and rib anomalies in the parents of children with spina bifida aperta and meningocoele.
  The American Journal of Human Genetics, Chicago, September 1962, 14: 245-248.
• F. C. Fraser, D. Warburton:
  No association of emotional stress or vitamin supplement during pregnancy to cleft lip or palate in man.
  Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Baltimore, April 1964, 33: 395-399.
• F. C. Fraser, D. Warburton:
  Regional and local societies of plastic and reconstructive surgery.
  Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, April 1964, 33: 401.
• F. C. Fraser:
  Experimental teratogenesis in relation to congenital malformations in man.
  World-Wide Abstracts of General Medicine, Morris Plains, N. J., May 1964, 76: 8-17.
• L. Dallaire, F. C. Fraser:
  Two unusual cases of familial mongolism.
  Canadian Journal of Genetics and Cytology, December 1964, 6: 540-547.
• M. Goldstein, F. C. Fraser, K. Roth:
  Resistance of a-jax mouse embryos with spontaneous congenital cleft lip to the lethal effect of 6-amino-nicotinamide.
  J Med Genet, June 1965, 39: 128-130
  
  
• M. K. Tadjoedin, F. C. Fraser:
  Heredity of ataxia-telangiectasia (Louis-Bar syndrome).
  American Journal of Diseases of Children, July 1965, 110: 64-68.
• F. Clarke Fraser, James J. Nora:
  Genetics of man. 2nd edition. Philadelphia. Lea & Feibiger, 1986. 352 pages.
• Giovanni Marzullo, F. Clarke Fraser:
  Similar rhythms of seasonal conceptions in neural tube defects and schizophrenia: a hypothesis of oxidant stress and the photoperiod.
  Birth Defects Research. Part A, Clinical and Molecular Teratology, Hoboken NJ, January 2005, 73: 1-5. Biographical etc:
• Canadian Who's Who 1997 entry.
  Univeristy of Toronto Press. Retrieved on November 20, 2006.
• T. I. Fang:
  A Lucky star. The journey of Clarke Fraser: a celebrated Canadian scientist.
  The Ambassadors. The online Magazine. Volume 2, number 2, April 1999.
• Prix du Québec. McGill Reporter.
  Thursday December 9, 1999. Retrieved on November 20, 2006.
• P. A. Baird:
  Fraser, Frank Clarke.
  The Canadian Encyclopedia on the WWW. Retrieved on November 20, 2006.