LEJEUNE, JÉRÔME

Physician, research scientist, member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, first president, Pontifical Academy for Life; b. Montrouge, France, 1927; d. Paris, France, April 3, 1994. Jérôme Lejeune studied at the University of Paris, earning a doctorate in medicine in 1951 and a doctorate in science in 1960. While in his early thirties, he worked at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the French government laboratory. At age thirty-one, he discovered the chromosomal abnormality that causes Down Syndrome, a form of mental retardation. This seminal discovery opened the door to an increase in the field of genetic research known as clinical cytogenetics that deals with disorders resulting from chromosomal abnormalities.

Lejeune showed that in Down Syndrome, the extra chromosome was a marker for biochemical imbalance. Although he never produced a way to prevent the condition, he devised several protocols for its treatment and was able in most cases to improve the intelligence of his patients. He also identified the occurrence of thyroid deficiency in fifty percent of his patients under five. By treating the thyroid deficiency, he was able to improve his patients' intelligence and activity quickly and permanently. He also discovered other conditions caused by chromosomal abnormalities (e.g., the deletion of the short arm on the fifth pair of chromosomes in Cri du Chat syndrome). At the time of his death, he was treating amino acid deficiencies in his patients.

While professor of fundamental genetics at the René Descartes University, he also ran a department at the institute of genetics and treated patients at the Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. Lejeune continued his research and treatment of Down Syndrome children from around the world even when government funding for his work was withdrawn.

His work did not go unrecognized, and he was honored in many countries. In France, he was a member of the sociological section of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences; in the United States, he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, having spent several years in the United States. He worked with the United Nations scientific committee on congenital abnormalities, and he was a member of many academies of science worldwide.

Christian Faith. Lejeune's Christian faith was the bedrock of both his personal and his public life, and he never compromised the fundamental belief that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. When Lejeune began research into Down Syndrome, he was one of several scientists working on the problem in Europe. With the advent of legalized abortion, the attitude of the medical profession changed. Research became concentrated on what has been described as "search and destroy": most modern research is concerned with finding a quick and efficient test to spot a child with Down Syndrome as early as possible in pregnancy in order that the child may be aborted. By the mid-1970s Lejeune was one of few scientists in Europe still trying to find a cure or an amelioration for the Down Syndrome children.

In 1974 he was made a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and in the 1980s he was in great demand by Pope John Paul II for information and advice on the many disturbing developments in genetics, such as embryo experimentation and genetic engineering. They became close friends. When the pope established the Pontifical Academy for Life, he invited Lejeune to become its first president, although the pope knew that Lejeune was dying. Lejeune was a great leader in the prolife movement, serving as chairman of Laissez-les vivres, president of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), and founding member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life.

Bibliography: j. lejeune, Les Chromosomes humains (Paris 1965); Concentration Can (San Francisco 1992).

[m. white]