Pioneer
in Human Genetics and Founding
Member of UCSD School of Medicine Dies
By Leslie Franz | June
2, 2006
Dr. Jarvis “Jay” Edwin Seegmiller, a
pioneer in the field of human genetics, an advocate
for research and education to support healthy aging,
and an Emeritus Professor and founding faculty member
at the School of Medicine, passed away on Wednesday
at Thornton Hospital in La Jolla after a brief respiratory
illness. He was 85.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday at the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 4741
Mt. Abernathy Avenue, San Diego. In lieu of
flowers, family members ask that donations be made
to UCSD’s Stein Institute for Research on Aging
(SIRA), www.sira.ucsd.edu,
phone: 858-534-6299.
“Jay Seegmiller was one of the giants of American
medicine,” said Dr. Edward Holmes, Vice Chancellor
of Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine
at UCSD. “He and his trainees have made innumerable
contributions to our understanding of the pathogenesis
of many human disorders. He was also a wonderful colleague
and mentor for many of us at UCSD and around the world.
He will be greatly missed, but his legacy will continue
through the work of those he inspired.”
Seegmiller was one of the country’s leading
researchers in intermediary metabolism, with a focus
on purine metabolism and inherited metabolism.
He worked in the field of human biochemical genetics,
with a special interest in the mechanisms by which
genetically determined defects of metabolism lead
to various forms of arthritis. His laboratory
identified a wide range of primary metabolic defects
in metabolism responsible for development of gout,
and pioneered the use of tissue culture to study these
metabolic defects.
He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the
enzyme defect in Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, a fatal disorder
of the nervous system causing severe mental retardation
and self-mutilation impulses. As director of
the Human Biochemical Genetics Program at UCSD, Seegmiller’s
investigations into the translation of genetic research
and methods of prevention, detection and treatment
of hereditary diseases led to Congressional testimony
on the possibility of controlling genetic disease
in the United States. As a result, genetic referral
centers have been established throughout the country.
He joined the newly established UCSD School of Medicine
in 1969 as head of the Arthritis Division of the Department
of Medicine. There, he directed a research program
in human biochemical genetics involving senior faculty
from five departments within the School of Medicine.
While a professor at UCSD, he served as a Macy Scholar
both at Oxford University and at the Basel Institute
in Switzerland, as well as a Guggenheim Fellow at
the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
in Lausanne.
In 1983, he became the founding director of what
is today UCSD’s Stein Institute for Research
on Aging (SIRA). Even after his retirement, he continued
to serve as Associate Director of SIRA from 1990 until
his death.
“He had the foresight of proposing the formation
of and then establishing a new Institute on Aging
at UCSD before there was any such Institute in the
entire UC system,” said Dr. Dilip Jeste, the
Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging, professor of
psychiatry and neurosciences and current director
of SIRA. “He was himself a
role model of successful aging, and continued working
in the SIRA till his very last days. A brilliant scientist,
he was also a very kind and generous person. He took
great pride in developing an outstanding Public Lecture
Series on Aging that is broadcast on UCSD TV, and
is watched by thousands of people. The SIRA is a lasting
monument to Seegmiller's creativity and vision.”
Seegmiller was born June 22, 1920 in St. George,
Utah. He graduated from the University of Utah
in 1942 and received his Doctor of Medicine with honors
from the University of Chicago in 1948. After
he completed his internship at John Hopkins Hospital
in Baltimore, Maryland, he trained with Bernard Horecker
of the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic
Disease at the National Institutes of Health.
After work as a research associate at the Thorndike
Memorial Laboratory of Harvard Medical School, and
as a visiting investigator at the Public Health Research
Institute of the City of New York, Seegmiller returned
to the NIH in 1954, when he was appointed senior investigator
of the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic
Disease. There he carried out biochemical and
clinical studies of human hereditary disease, with
a special interest in those causing various forms
of arthritis. He became assistant scientific
director of the Institute in 1960, and was appointed
chief of the section on Human Biochemical Genetics
in 1966, becoming one of several NIH leaders recruited
to help launch UC San Diego’s new medical school.
Seegmiller’s clinical activities included studies
in life longevity in South America. In 1974,
he joined a team of notable scientists and traveled
to the remote village of Vilcabamba in Ecuador, to
find out what role genetic factors played in the population
of the Andean villagers who comprised of some of the
longest-living people in the world. His later
work led to the discovery of free radicals and their
damaging effects in the human ability to withstand
diseases, bringing forward new investigations on human
aging at SIRA.
The UCSD Alumni Association presented Seegmiller
with a Distinguished Service Award in 1990.
In 2002, he shared his definition of research when
addressed new medical students at UCSD: “In
my past 33 years teaching here at UCSD, one of principle
objectives has been to help new students realize that
you each have capabilities you may not be aware of
for finding new solutions to very old problems.
This awareness comes from your learning how to ask
questions of Mother Nature that can be answered by
her in results that tell you ‘yes’ or
‘no.’ That is what research is all
about.”
Seegmiller was a member of the National Academy of
Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
and was the recipient of numerous prizes and awards
in honor of his extraordinary achievements in science
and medicine. He received the United States
Public Health Distinguished Service Award in 1969;
and was honored as Master of the American College
of Rheumatology (ACR) in 1992.
He was a member of the American Society of Biological
Chemists, the American Chemical Society, the American
Federation for Clinical Research, the American Society
of Human Genetics, the American Rheumatism Association,
the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
and the Association of American Physicians.
He was on the advisory boards for the National Genetics
Foundation, the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte,
California, the Task Force on Endocrinology and Metabolism
for NIH, the Executive Editorial Board for Analytical
Biochemistry, and was President of the Western Association
of Physicians in 1979.
A resident of La Jolla, California, Seegmiller is
survived by his wife, Barbara; his daughters, Dale
Seegmiller Maudlin and Lisa Seegmiller Taylor; sons
Robert Edwin of and Richard Lewis; stepsons Gary,
David and Randy Ellertson; sisters Rose and Deola
Bell and 17 grandchildren. His first wife,
Roberta, passed away in 1992.
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