On February 6th of this year, we have lost George Karpati, one of the most influential leaders in muscle research. Born in Hungary, he miraculously survived the holocaust and arrived in Canada in 1957. He completed his medical education at Dalhousie University in Halifax, did a postgraduate training at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), which was followed by a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, with Dr. King Engel.
Dr. Karpati joined the MNI as faculty member in 1967 and grew to become the Isaak Walton Killam Professor at McGill University – in which position he served until his death. He left behind his beloved wife Shira Tannor and their sons Adam and Joshua, to both of whom he was extremely devoted.
Dr. Karpati was a scholar, an outstanding clinician and a superb teacher. He was the mentor to generations of neuromuscular neurologists in Canada and abroad.
Muscle pathology was his overwhelming passion, which led to an authoritative myopathology textbook, jointly written with his friend Dr. Stirling Carpenter. Dr. Karpati edited an important textbook on the molecular and structural basis of muscle diseases, to which he fondly referred to as the “blue book”. He also took upon himself the editorship of the classic textbook on disorders of voluntary muscle, initiated by Lord Walton, and had just finished editing its latest edition, which is to appear by the end of this year.
He established a neuromuscular research group at the MNI, to tackle the biology of neuromuscular diseases from different perspectives. He recruited capacities in their respective fields of cell biology (Heather Durham, Josephine Nalbantoglu), biochemistry (Paul Holland), molecular biology (Ken Hastings), physiology (Basil Petrof, Tanja Taivassalo), genetics (Renald Gilbert), mitochondrial diseases (Eric Shoubridge) and neuromuscular neurology (Daniel Gendron, Angela Genge), rendering the MNI one of North America’s foremost centers for neuromuscular medicine. I had the exceptional opportunity to join this group several years ago.
The time with George Karpati and his friendship will remain unforgettable with me.
Dr. Karpati was one of the first to describe now well-recognized neuromuscular entities, such as inclusion body myositis, adult onset polyglucosan body disease, giant axonal neuropathy, adult onset acid maltase deficiency, and myosin depletion myopathy, and he has contributed significantly to the understanding of their underlying pathophysiology.
He has published over 300 scientific papers on basic and on clinical neuroscience. One of his most important works is likely the discovery of the surface plasma membrane localization of dystrophin, the defective gene product in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This finding was an important step in the design of therapeutic strategies for the muscular dystrophies, to which he contributed pioneering work in myoblast transfer, stem cell therapy, viral mediated gene transfer and upregulation strategies for the homologous protein utrophin.
Dr. Karpati was deeply involved in the medical and scientific activities of the Montreal Neurological Hospital and Institute and the University.
His merits made him Officer of the Order of Canada and Chevalier of the Order of Quebec. He received the Wilder Penfield Award of the province of Quebec, the Governor General’s anniversary medal, the distinguished scientist award from the Canadian Society of Clinical Investigators, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Muscular Dystrophy Association Canada and from the Montreal Neurological Institute, he has obtained honorary doctoral degrees from universities abroad and numerous honors more.
His death is a heavy loss to his family, to his friends, and to the entire community of muscle research.
Figure 1.
