Happy 50th Anniversary Human Genetics!

Medical School department enters the golden years

Faculty, students and staff in the Medical School’s Department of Human Genetics are celebrating a golden anniversary this summer. The department was founded 50 years ago—on July 1, 1956—which makes it the oldest academic department devoted to genetics at any U.S. medical school.

Back in 1956, medical students weren’t taught much about genetics, because doctors didn’t know much about it. The idea that genetic mutations could cause human diseases was still a fuzzy concept to the average physician.

Fortunately for U-M, James Neel, M.D., Ph.D., was not your average physician. One of the Medical School’s most distinguished scientists and legendary characters, Neel was a visionary who realized early on how important genetics would be to the future of medicine. Recruited in 1946 to run the U-M’s hereditary disease clinic on Catherine Street, Neel transformed it into a thriving academic department that attracted some of the country’s most prominent geneticists and promising students to Ann Arbor.

During the past 50 years, U-M researchers have uncovered the genetic roots of a long list of human disorders—sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Wilson’s disease, deafness, a bleeding disorder called von Willebrand’s disease, hemophilia, epilepsy and many more.

Some of this research has led to cures or better treatments that are helping patients today.Some has produced new insight into the causes or mechanisms of genetic disease that could help tomorrow’s patients. Stay tuned. Who knows what the next 50 years will bring?

Want to know more about Human Genetics and this important milestone? Read more in Medicine at Michigan.