Summer 1955

Human Genetics finds a new home

“The completion of the third floor of the Nathan Smith Building has long been awaited by members of the Department of Human Genetics. ‘It seems as though we had outgrown facilities in the LCI building even before we moved in,’ a faculty member observed recently.

“During the past two decades, the study of human genetics has become one of the most rapidly advancing and challenging fields in medical science. ‘It is hard to believe now, that in the 1950s when I and many of my colleagues were in medical school, human genetics was a relatively minor subject,’ Dr. Leon Rosenberg, chairman of the Department, remarked a few years ago.

“The Nathan Smith Building … symbolizes the spirit in which the Department was founded in 1972. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg stated, ‘The fundamental philosophy behind this departmental organization is that the application of basic genetic knowledge to the problems of human illness can best be accomplished in a climate which encourages close interaction between those with expertise is basic laboratory genetic science and those who are concerned with patients with genetic problems. This is a new concept in academic medicine.”