Eeva Maria Therman-Patau (1916–2004) was a Finnish-born American

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...

. She worked to characterize the effects and cytogenetics of

trisomy 13 A trisomy is a type of polysomy in which there are three instances of a particular chromosome, instead of the normal two. A trisomy is a type of aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes). Description and causes Most organisms that reprodu ...

and

trisomy 18 A trisomy is a type of polysomy in which there are three instances of a particular chromosome, instead of the normal two. A trisomy is a type of aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes). Description and causes Most organisms that reprodu ...

, two rare and usually fatal genetic disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 13 and 18, respectively. Her works include ''Human Chromosomes: Structure, Behavior, Effects'', a textbook on cytogenetics which is in its 4th edition. Her research specialties included

X-inactivation X-inactivation (also called Lyonization, after English geneticist Mary Lyon) is a process by which one of the copies of the X chromosome is inactivated in therian female mammals. The inactive X chromosome is silenced by being packaged into a ...

in mammals and chromosomal abnormalities in cancer. She received her PhD from the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

in 1947. She emigrated to the United States in 1958, and shortly thereafter began to work as a research assistant in Klaus Patau's laboratory in the Department of Genetics at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

. Three years later, she married Patau. Due to university hiring rules, she was unable to become faculty until Patau's death in 1975. She retired in 1986, and returned to Finland in 2002.

References

1916 births 2004 deaths American geneticists Finnish geneticists American women geneticists 20th-century American physicians 21st-century American physicians {{US-physician-stub