James E. Bowman
| James E. Bowman | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Edward Bowman February 5, 1923 Washington, D.C. |
| Died | September 28, 2011 (aged 88) Chicago, Illinois |
| Citizenship | United States of America |
| Fields | Pathology and Genetics |
| Institutions | University of Chicago Medical School MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics |
| Alma mater | Howard University |
| Known for | Father of Valerie Jarrett |
James Edward Bowman, MD, FASCP, FCAP (February 5, 1923 – September 28, 2011) was an American physician and specialist in pathology, hematology, and genetics. He was a professor of pathology and genetics at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago.
James Edward Bowman was born on February 5, 1923, in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy (Peterson), a homemaker, and James Edward Bowman, Sr., a dentist. He attended Dunbar High School. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Howard University in 1943 and 1946. He did medical internships at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington D.C. and at Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His residency in pathology was at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago where he was the first African American resident.
Following residency, Bowman served as chair of pathology at Provident Hospital. He was drafted again and spent 1953 to 1955 as chief of pathology for the Medical Nutrition Laboratory at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. After leaving the military Bowman decided to move overseas. “My wife and I decided that we were not going to go back to anything that smacked of segregation,” he recalled. He became chair of pathology at Nemazee Hospital in Shiraz, Iran. “We were recently married, so we took a chance,” he said. “It changed our lives completely.” Their daughter, Valerie, was born in Iran.
In Iran Bowman saw many diseases for the first time. “I saw smallpox, brucellosis, rabies, all sorts of things,” he said. One of the most common diseases among certain ethnic groups in Iran was favism, a metabolic disease caused by an enzyme deficiency in red blood cells. The mutation, which is the most common human enzyme defect, renders those who have it unable to break down a toxin found in fava beans. Favism fit with Bowman’s lifelong focus on inherited blood diseases and led to a series of important discoveries about the genetics of these diseases and the populations they affect, especially in the Middle East, Africa and America. It enabled him to travel all over the world collecting blood samples for DNA testing. It also led to frequent contacts and collaborations with University of Chicago researchers, who had first described the enzyme deficiency (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, or G6PD) and its connection with antimalarial medications.
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