After More Than 50 Years, a Dispute Over Down Syndrome Discovery

by Elizabeth Pain from Science Mag:
It would have been a personal triumph for Marthe Gautier, an 88-year-old pediatric cardiologist and scientist living in Paris. On 31 January, during a meeting in Bordeaux, Gautier was to receive a medal for her role in the discovery of the cause of Down syndrome in the late 1950s. In a speech, she planned to tell an audience of younger French geneticists her story about the discovery—and how she felt the credit she deserved went to a male colleague, Jérôme Lejeune.
But Gautier's talk was canceled just hours in advance, and she received the medal a day later in a small, private ceremony. The French Federation of Human Genetics (FFGH), which organized the meeting, decided to scrap the event after two bailiffs showed up with a court order granting them permission to tape Gautier’s speech. They were sent by the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, which wanted to have a record of the talk. The foundation, which supports research and care for patients with genetic intellectual disabilities and campaigns against abortion, said it had reason to believe Gautier would "tarnish" the memory of Lejeune, who died in 1994.

UMass scientist gets $1M grant for Down syndrome research

by Lisa Eckelbecker from telegram.com:

A University of Massachusetts Medical School scientist has won a $1 million grant for research into Down syndrome.

Jeanne B. Lawrence, professor of cell and developmental biology, was one of three researchers nationally to receive a grant from the John Merck Fund for efforts to translate research into treatments for people with developmental disabilities, the fund reported today.

Based in Boston, the fund holds $75 million in assets and aims to spend all its money over the next nine years on work in developmental disabilities, clean energy, environmental health and the development of a New England regional food system.

The UMass project was one of 100 proposals seeking support from the John Merck Fund.
Down syndrome is a genetic disorder. Genes, the code for life, sit on chromosomes in the body's cells. Generally, people carry 23 pairs of chromosomes. In Down syndrome, individuals carry three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two.
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The John Merck Fund said the UMass project will pursue research based on deactivating one of the three copies of chromosome 21.