Papers of Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith, geneticist, Professor of Medical Genetics, University of Glasgow, Scotland

The material covers the period 1957-2008. The archive is dominated by Ferguson-Smith's very substantial correspondence. It includes:

Biographical material, including biographical accounts of Ferguson-Smith's life and career to date, correspondence relating to his early career, and bibliography;

Medical genetics material, including research and reports, correspondence and memoranda relating to the development of the field of genetics as an academic study and as clinical practice, and correspondence regarding the development of medical genetics at Cambridge;

Correspondence, recording the full range of Ferguson-Smith's activities at Glasgow and from 1987 at Cambridge as university academic, as genetics consultant advising doctors and patients, and as director of a major medical genetics service serving millions of people. It is consequently very diverse and is organised following Ferguson-Smith's own arrangement; chronologically by group of years and then alphabetically within each group;

Publications, including material relating to Ferguson-Smith's publications and intended publications;

Material relating to lectures and meetings attended by Ferguson-Smith;

Material relating to societies and organisations Ferguson-Smith was involved with, the bulk of which relates to the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) of which Ferguson-Smith was a founding and Executive Council member;

Consultancies and collaborations, which date from after Ferguson-Smith's move to Cambridge;

Gender verification in sport, papers and correspondence relating to Ferguson-Smith's involvement from 1969 in the debate about methods of testing athletes's sex;

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy material relating to the BSE Inquiry on which Ferguson-Smith served;

Non-textual material, including historical 16mm colour educational films on genetics made in the USA.

This description is part of the main Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith collection which has been divided into the following sections, each with its own separate description:

UGC 188/1, biographical material

UGC 188/2, medical genetics material

UGC 188/3, correspondence

UGC 188/4, publications

UGC 188/5, lectures and meetings

UGC 188/6, societies and organisations

UGC 188/7, consultancies and collaborations

UGC 188/8, gender verification in sport

UGC 188/9, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

UGC 188/10, non-textual material

Wellcome Collection does not hold a digitised copy of all items in this collection. Items restricted in accordance with Data Protection legislation have not been digitised. Items not digitised may be viewed in the searchroom at Archive Services, University of Glasgow. Please visit the Glasgow University Archive Services website or see the complete catalogue for full details.

1957-2008

6.57 metres

The archive has been divided into the following sections, each with its own separate description:

UGC 188/1, biographical material

UGC 188/2, medical genetics material

UGC 188/3, correspondence

UGC 188/4, publications

UGC 188/5, lectures and meetings

UGC 188/6, societies and organisations

UGC 188/7, consultancies and collaborations

UGC 188/8, gender verification in sport

UGC 188/9, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

UGC 188/10, non-textual material

Deposit : Timothy E Powell : 2008 : ACCN 3258

Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith was born in Glasgow in 1931, the son of the distinguished physician and dermatologist John Ferguson-Smith. He graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1955 and held House Physician and House Surgeon posts at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, 1955-1956, and was Senior House Officer and Registrar in Pathology, 1956-1958. While undertaking postgraduate training in pathology he was introduced to research on sex chromatin under Bernard Lennox. Their buccal smear surveys revealed for the first time the high frequency of Klinefelter's Syndrome among subfertile males and those with learning difficulties. Unsuccessful efforts to undertake chromosome analysis in these patients during 1957-1958 led to Ferguson-Smith continuing his research in the USA, with appointment as Fellow in Medicine at the School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1959. Ferguson-Smith remained at Johns Hopkins, working on chromosomes with Victor Almon McKusick, for nearly three years. Here he established the first human chromosome diagnostic laboratory in the USA and undertook cytogenetic research into the Turner Syndrome and true hermaphroditism.

Ferguson-Smith returned to the Department of Genetics (headed by Guido Pontecorvo) at Glasgow University in 1961. He was appointed successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader, becoming the first Burton Professor of Medical Genetics in 1973. His duties included teaching genetics to medical students and the establishment of a Regional Genetics Service for a population of three million in the West of Scotland. The clinical cytogenetics service provided opportunities for contributing to the human gene map using familial chromosome polymorphisms, deletion mapping, in situ hybridisation and chromosome sorting by flow cytometry. His work on mapping the Y-linked sex determinant in XX males led to the isolation of the mammalian sex determining gene twenty-five years later. The work on translocations in pachytene, gene mapping through chromosome deletion and by in situ hybridisation proved to be the first descriptions in the human genetics literature. He also participated extensively in all eleven international Human Gene Mapping Workshops from 1973 to 1991. During this period he published on many other aspects of human meiosis, clinical genetics, antenatal diagnosis and human chromosome mapping.

In 1987 Ferguson-Smith was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Pathology at Cambridge University and Director of the East Anglia Regional Genetics Service. He led research on gene isolation, fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) techniques, reverse chromosome painting and studies in karyotype evolution using chromosome sorting and cross-species chromosome painting. He retired as Head of Pathology in 1998 and he and his team moved to the Cambridge University Department of Veterinary Medicine. In 2002 he established the Cambridge Resource Centre for Comparative Genomics, with Wellcome Trust support. The Centre produced and distributed chromosome-specific DNA from over 120 species of animals, birds and fish to scientists throughout the world for research in biology, evolution, gene mapping and cancer. This data led to many collaborative studies and allowed cross-species comparisons to be made and homologies between species mapped, so allowing detailed studies of relationships between species and research into genomic evolution. The cross-species chromosome homology maps generated by these studies were made available in a database (www.chromhome.org). An important aspect of the research of the Ferguson-Smith laboratory at the Vet School was on the evolution of vertebrate sex determination and their discovery and characterisation of the unique ten sex chromosome system of the platypus.

Ferguson-Smith's expertise as a medical geneticist was called on in a number of other capacities. In 1969 he was approached by the British Olympic Committee to administer the tests for competitors for the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games. He declined, arguing that the method of testing (the sex chromatin or buccal smear test) would be more likely unfairly to exclude women athletes than detect cheats. The buccal smear test was challenged again in the 1980s and in 1991 the International Amateur Athletic Federation set up a Working Group on Gender Verification. Ferguson-Smith served on this Working Group which called for an end to genetics-based gender verification and its replacement with a health test for all athletes. It met with gradual success until in 1999 the IOC abandoned genetics based testing for the Sydney Olympics. In 1998 Ferguson-Smith was appointed as the scientist member of Lord Phillips' Committee reviewing the UK Government's original Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Inquiry. The Phillips Committee considered the emergence of BSE and new variant CJD and the action taken in response to it, reporting in 2000.

Ferguson-Smith has received many honours including election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1978 and the Royal Society of London in 1983, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1993 and the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998.

Related material held at Glasgow University Archive Services:

GB 0248 GEN, University of Glasgow, Institute of Genetics, including correspondence about the new building for the Institute of Genetics, student records, lectures, teaching slides, and Department guestbook.

GB 0248 UGC 155, correspondence between Ferguson-Smith and James Renwick.

GB 0248 UGC 198, correspondence between Ferguson-Smith and Guido Pontecorvo.

Information on the genetics collections held at Glasgow University Archive Services can be found here.

Related material held in other archives:

GB 0103 (ref: PENROSE): the Lionel Sharples Penrose collection held at University College London holds some items relating to Ferguson-Smith.

GB 0120, the Wellcome Library holds a paper co-authored by Ferguson-Smith and others.

Applications for permission to quote should be sent to: Duty Archivist, Archive Services, University of Glasgow, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE or email enquiries@archives.gla.ac.uk.

Most files are open and available at Glasgow University Archive Services. Some files in this collection are restricted in accordance with Data Protection legislation as they identify patients and contain sensitive information. However, they may be made accessible to bona fide researchers and academics. Please contact the Duty Archivist for advice on how to apply for access to these files. Contact details are as follows: Duty Archivist, Archive Services, University of Glasgow, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE, or email enquiries@archives.gla.ac.uk.

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This material was appraised by the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath.

A digitised copy is held by the Wellcome Library as part of Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics. Material restricted in accordance with Data Protection legislation has not been digitised.

Professor Ferguson-Smith is likely to deposit additional papers and correspondence in the future.

The archive was originally deposited in the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists at the University of Bath by Professor Ferguson-Smith in October 2007 and May 2008. It was then transferred to Glasgow University Archives in 2008.

The original material is held at Glasgow University Archive Services. This catalogue is held by the Wellcome Library as part of Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics.