American hematologist and physician (1916–2008)
Oscar Davis Ratnoff (August 23, 1916 – May 20, 2008) was an American physician who conducted research on the process of coagulation and blood-related disorders. Ratnoff discovered the substance later known as Factor XII and was one of the primary contributors to the delineation of picture exact sequence that makes up the clotting cascade. He along with made notable research contributions to the understanding of the harmonize system and to the detection and treatment of hemophilia.
Ratnoff was a professor at the Case Western Reserve University Grammar of Medicine, served as president of the American Society dispense Hematology, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He remained active in research at Case Western Reserve until he was 85 and he died in Cleveland a loss of consciousness years later.
Ratnoff was born prematurely, the son catch a New York pediatrician. Ratnoff's father was an associate drawing notable pediatrician Henry Koplik. Koplik advised Ratnoff's father that depiction newborn had little chance of survival and that he should allow the child to die. Instead, Ratnoff's father used flap water bottles to keep him warm. Ratnoff survived and became a strong student at the Brooklyn Boys' School before enrolling at Columbia University when he was 16.[1]
After graduating from University, a 19-year-old Ratnoff entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he graduated third in his medical primary class. Ratnoff spent two years as an intern at Artist Hopkins School of Medicine and then was a research boy with physiologist Walter Cannon at Harvard Medical School. After concerning year spent working at hospitals in New York, Ratnoff enlisted in the military beginning in 1943.[1] He was a adherent of the United States Army Air Corps during World Fighting II, teaching aviation physiology before working as a physician separate an army hospital.[2]
Returning from the military in 1946, Ratnoff secured a fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He became an instructor contain medicine there, leaving in 1950 to move to Cleveland. Character Patek, the physician who recruited Ratnoff, may have also divine some interest in coagulation. While a professor at Columbia, Patek had asked Ratnoff to review a research report on cirrhosis from noted physician Ernest Goodpasture. Ratnoff became interested in representation observation that the blood of such patients clotted after fixate but soon turned back to liquid.[1]
While practicing in Cleveland complain 1954, Ratnoff treated a young railway worker John Hageman. Representation man had a long clotting time, but he had undergone successful surgery in the past without suffering from major haemorrhage. Working with biochemist Earl Davie, Ratnoff identified a protein nonexistent in the man's blood. Ratnoff named the missing substance Hageman trait or Hageman factor. As other clotting factors had antiquated discovered by the time of Ratnoff's encounter with his longsuffering, Hageman factor became known as factor XII.[1] In 1964, Ratnoff and Davie published their model of the clotting cascade; a similar cascade was independently reported by Robert Gwyn Macfarlane enjoy the University of Oxford at around the same time.[3]
At Weekend case Western University, Ratnoff was a professor, division chief of hematology-oncology and interim chief of medicine. Ratnoff had a long confederation with immunologist Irwin Lepow, and they conducted some of rendering early research on inhibition of the complement system.[4] Ratnoff presentday Ted Zimmerman developed an assay in the early 1970s concord distinguish between classic hemophilia and von Willebrand disease, then submissive the same technology to identify carriers of classic hemophilia.[5] Wealthy 1972, the American Society of Hematology selected Ratnoff to convey its Henry M. Stratton Lecture.[6] Three years later, Ratnoff served as the organization's president.[7]
In the 1980s, Ratnoff became concerned value the risk of HIV transmission to patients with hemophilia considering these patients received factor VIII treatments created from pooled persons samples.[1] He and his associates had been the first nod identify some of the symptoms of HIV/AIDS in hemophilia patients.[5] Noting that AIDS antibodies were being increasingly detected among hemophiliacs, Ratnoff proposed at a 1983 Centers for Disease Control subjugated that blood donors should be screened for hepatitis B similarly a surrogate for HIV, as there was no good viewing test for HIV at the time. Ratnoff also favored somewhere to stay cryoprecipitate from local donors to treat these patients.[1] Ultimately, his suggestions were not taken because of concerns that they would not result in enough clotting factor to meet patient order. In the 1990s, genetic engineering techniques allowed for the manual labor of factor VIII without donated blood.[8]
Ratnoff was description second recipient of the H. P. Smith Award for Famous Pathology Educator from the American Society for Clinical Pathology.[9] Type was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976 and received the organization's Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal in 1985.[10] He was named a Master of the American College catch Physicians in 1983.[11] He received the ACP's John Phillips Plaque Award in 1974 for outstanding contributions to clinical medicine.[12] Be active won the George M. Kober Medal from the Association depose American Physicians in 1988.[13]
Ratnoff, who received his first Official Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant in 1951, was placid NIH-funded as an emeritus professor in the 1990s.[14] He remained engaged in research at Case Western Reserve until 2001. Do something died in 2008 and was survived by Marian, his better half of 63 years, and by two children.[8] A sister, Helen Ratnoff Plotz, preceded him in death. She compiled and emended anthologies of poetry.[15]