Definition of Fredrickson, Donald
Fredrickson, Donald definition - medical term (1924-2002) American physiologist and biomedical
research leader who made significant contributions to medicine over the course of
four decades. Fredrickson's system of classification of abnormalities in fat transport
was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an international standard
for identifying increased risks of coronary artery disease linked to the consumption
of fats and cholesterol. He also discovered two genetic diseases caused by disorders
in lipid metabolism. As director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fredrickson
mediated between scientists and the federal government during debates over the direction
of medical research policy, funding, and the dangers of genetic engineering during
the second half of the 1970s.
D on Fredrickson was born in Cañon City, Colorado. He received his bachelor's
in 1946 and his medical degree in 1949, both from the University of Michigan. He
was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1957. While touring
Europe by bicycle, Fredrickson met Henriette Priscilla Dorothea Eekhoff, a Dutch
law student at the University of Leyden. They married in the Hague in 1950. During
the 1950s, she supported the junior scientist and their two sons through an import
company for Dutch cigars she founded.
Fredrickson conducted postgraduate research at Harvard University Medical School
and Massachusetts General Hospital before arriving at the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1953. From an early stage in his professional
career, Fredrickson sought to integrate laboratory research with clinical practice,
to place science in the service of treating disease.
After a research career in laboratories devoted to cellular metabolism, physiology,
and molecular diseases, he became director of the National Heart Institute in 1966,
a position he held until 1968. During his term as director the first heart transplant
in man was performed by South African heart surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard, with
whom Fredrickson arranged a historic meeting on December 18, 1967, at Chicago's
O'Hare airport. The meeting was attended by prominent heart surgeons in the United
States who were soon to replicate Barnard's feat. Fredrickson remained at the National
Heart Institute as Director of Intramural Research until 1974.
In late spring of 1974, Dr. Fredrickson left the NIH to become the second President
of the Institute of Medicine, a health care and medical research policy think tank
in Washington, D.C., established under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences.
He recalled that he was attracted to his new position because "there was a rich
mixture of the dialects and ethics operative in the world outside the laboratory
walls" that offered "an unparalleled view of the complex field of human health."
During his brief tenure at IOM he proved an effective fundraiser, a new role for
an administrator used to administering, not soliciting, research funds.
Almost from the moment Dr. Fredrickson joined the Institute of Medicine, he was
drawn once again into the administrative politics of NIH. The directorship of NIH
had become vacant for the second time in as many years. Fredrickson received phone
calls from federal officials indicating dissension in the upper ranks of NIH, and
asking Fredrickson to step into the void of leadership by becoming NIH director.
On April 19, 1975, Fredrickson returned to Bethesda as director of NIH. In a conversation
with Philip Handler, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Fredrickson
justified his decision by stating that leading NIH was "not a job; it's a cause."
Over the next six years, Fredrickson's administrative and political skills were
frequently tested during the most turbulent period in the history of the NIH. Immediately
he was thrown into the growing controversy over the environmental hazards and the
ethics of recombinant DNA research, cutting-edge genetic experimentation that, critics
warned, could produce new and untreatable pathogens and presented an unwarranted
human manipulation of the natural order. During the economic and budget crises of
the late 1970s, the U.S. Congress considered reducing government funding on which
NIH and, through its extramural grant program, most biomedical research in the United
States depended. Members of Congress who sought to curtail NIH funding said that
basic research sponsored by NIH did not yield clinical applications and therapies
rapidly enough to benefit patients. Not least, Fredrickson had to adjust to the
changing priorities of three U.S. Presidents and five Secretaries of Health, Education,
and Welfare (since 1980, Health and Human Services) under which he served.
Fredrickson's main success as NIH director lay in devising guidelines for recombinant
DNA research that preserved freedom of scientific inquiry while allaying public
fears of genetic manipulation; stabilizing NIH funding at a time of retrenchment;
and fostering consensus among clinical and scientific researchers at NIH, groups
that often found themselves at odds in their research objectives and struggle for
funding. With these controversies alleviated, Fredrickson completed his tenure as
director of NIH in June of 1981.
After two years as Scholar-in-Residence at the National Academy of Sciences,
Fredrickson became first vice president, then president, CEO and trustee of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Fredrickson oversaw the sale of the Institute's
sole asset, the Hughes Aircraft Company, for six billion dollars, as well as the
Institute's subsequent expansion into the largest source of philanthropic support
for biomedical research in the United States, dispensing research grants and supporting
laboratories in hospitals. Moreover, Fredrickson organized the relocation of the
Institute from Coconut Grove, Florida, to Chevy Chase, Maryland. From 1987 until
his death, Fredrickson was Scholar-in-Residence at the National Library of Medicine.
Drawing on his early medical training, he became personal physician to King Hassan
II of Morocco in 1975, a service for which he was elected a member of the Academy
of the Kingdom of Morocco in 1991. Dr. Fredrickson died at his home in Bethesda
in 2002.
Adapted from biographical information provided courtesy of the National Library
of Medicine.
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