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Guido Fanconi (1892–1979): a jack of all trades

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 6, pages 893–898 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

In 1927 the Swiss paediatrician Guido Fanconi described a family in which three boys had physical birth defects and died of a condition that resembled pernicious anaemia. In the 1960, inspired by Fanconi's theoretical considerations, it was shown that the disorder is based on an underlying chromosomal instability and is associated with a predisposition to bone marrow failure and cancer. As the 80th anniversary of the first description of Fanconi anaemia approaches, we were motivated to pay tribute to Guido Fanconi as an outstanding figure in European medicine and to honour his contribution to cancer research.

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Figure 1: Original slide from a lecture by Guido Fanconi showing two of the three first Fanconi anaemia patients and their family tree.
Figure 2: Images taken and illustrations drawn by Fanconi during his research into cases of Fanconi anaemia.
Figure 3: Fanconi's definition of research.
Figure 4: The 83-year-old Guido Fanconi at one of his last lectures on 7 April 1975 in Milan.

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Acknowledgements

Our very special thanks go to A. Fanconi, Guido Fanconi's son, for his enthusiastic support and critical review of the manuscript, and for the private photo and handwritten note from his father. We would like to thank G. Gamper for her strong support in gathering the biographical material. We thank F. Sennhauser, M. Schmugge and their team from the Kinderspital, Zurich, for their committed assistance. We would also like to warmly thank R. Dietrich of the Deutsche Fanconi-Anämie Hilfe e.V. for the very personal photos that he made available to us, which are not shown but were very instructive. A very special thank you to H. Hanenberg for giving us the opportunity to participate in his Fanconi anaemia working group. And last but not least, we would like to thank Hilary Coleman for the enjoyable and fruitful linguistic collaboration.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Stephan Lobitz and Eunike Velleuer: Both authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paediatric Oncology and Haematology, Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Stephan Lobitz

  2. Department of Paediatric Oncology, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Haematology and Immunology, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Eunike Velleuer

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Correspondence to Stephan Lobitz.

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Lobitz, S., Velleuer, E. Guido Fanconi (1892–1979): a jack of all trades. Nat Rev Cancer 6, 893–898 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2009

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