- Irene Ayako Uchida
Infobox Person
image_size = 150px
name = Irene Ayako Uchida
caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1917|4|8
birth_place =Vancouver ,British Columbia ,Canada
death_date =
death_place =
education =University of British Columbia University Toronto
occupation = Geneticist
spouse =
parents =
children =Irene Ayako Uchida, OC (born
April 8 1917 ) is a Canadian scientist andDown's Syndrome researcher.Born in
Vancouver , she initially studiedEnglish literature at theUniversity of British Columbia . As a child and teenager she played Violin and piano, and was described as "out-going" and "social" She went to visit her mother and sister who were inJapan at the time, and was able to catch a ship out of Japan prior to the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor on December 1941.In 1944 she continued her studies at the
University of Toronto where she wanted to get a masters degree insocial work . Her professors encouraged her to pursue a career ingenetics , and as a result she completed PhD in human genetics at the University of Toronto in 1951 and worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. At the Hospital for Sick Children she studiedtwin s and children withDown syndrome . In the 1960s she helped identify the link betweenx-ray s andbirth defects in pregnant women.In 1960 she became the director of the Department of Medical Genetics at the Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg and became a professor at the University of Manitoba (National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada, 1997).
In 1993, she was made an Officer of the
Order of Canada for "her research on radiation and human chromosome abnormalities [that] has made a notable contribution to medical science". [http://www.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/honours-desc.asp?lang=e&TypeID=orc&id=3187]
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