{{Short description|French physician and scientist}} {{Infobox scientist | honorific_prefix = | name = Marcel Bessis | honorific_suffix = | image = Marcel Bessis.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = A headshot of an older man wearing glasses and a suit | caption = Photo of Bessis, date unknown | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date |1917|11|15}} | birth_place = Tunis, Tunisia | death_date = {{death date and age |1994|03|28 |1917|11|15}} | death_place = Paris, France | death_cause = | citizenship = <!-- use only when necessary per WP:INFONAT --> | nationality = <!-- use only when necessary per WP:INFONAT --> | fields = Hematology | alma_mater = University of Paris (MD, 1944) | workplaces = {{ill|Centre national de transfusion sanguine|fr}}<br />University of Paris<br/>INSERM<br/>Hôpital de la Salpêtrière | awards = Knight of the Legion d'Honneur (1967)<br/>Member, French Academy of Sciences (1979)<br/>Member, {{ill|Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique|fr}} (1991)<br/>Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite<br/>Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres | spouse = Claude Desserteaux (m. 1952) | children = 3 }} '''Marcel Claude Bessis''' (15 November 1917 – 28 March 1994) was a French physician known for research on blood cells.<ref name="wintrobe"/><ref name="nyt"/><ref name="bernard"/>
Bessis was born in Tunis on 15 November 1917.<ref name="wintrobe"/><ref name="fas"/> He was educated at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris, France.<ref name="cths"/> He developed an interest in microscopy in his teenage years and went on to study medicine at the University of Paris.<ref name="wintrobe"/> During the Second World War, he served as a military physician and pioneered the technique of exchange transfusion to treat war injuries.<ref name="bernard"/><ref name="cths"/> He graduated with a medical degree in 1944.<ref name="cths"/> Later he studied exchange transfusion as a treatment for hemolytic disease of the newborn, uremia and acute leukemia. He was a frequent collaborator of Jean Bernard.<ref name="bernard"/>
Bessis used electron microscopy and microcinematography to study the structure and function of blood cells—particularly red blood cells, but also platelets and white blood cells, including the abnormal cells found in leukemia.<ref name="wintrobe"/><ref name="bernard"/> He invented new instruments to aid his research and developed techniques for manipulating cells using laser microbeams.<ref name="nyt"/><ref name="berns"/> Maxwell Wintrobe credited Bessis with coining the terms stomatocyte, echinocyte and discocyte.<ref name="wintrobe"/> Bessis wrote that "The doctor who knows how to see can recognize in a red cell the subtle alteration of a gene transmitted from time immemorial on the banks of the Congo River or the marks of aggressions of daily life. This form speaks a difficult language but one that can be entirely deciphered."<ref name="bernard"/>
From 1946 to 1980, Bessis was editor-in-chief of the ''Nouvelle revue d'hématologie''. In 1948 he was appointed director of research at the {{ill|Centre national de transfusion sanguine|fr}} (National Centre of Blood Transfusion), serving in that role until 1966,<ref name="cths"/> when he became the founding director of the Institut de Pathologie cellulaire (Institute of Cell Pathology) at INSERM.<ref name="wintrobe"/><ref name="cths"/> He began working as a professor of hematology at the University of Paris in 1961, becoming full professor in 1972.<ref name="cths"/> Bessis was appointed editor-in-chief of ''Blood Cells'' in 1975,<ref name="belg"/> and from 1986 until his death in 1994 was a co-director of the ''Centre de recherches sur l'écologie des cellules du sang'' at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière.<ref name="bernard"/><ref name="cths"/>
In 1967, Bessis was named a knight of the Legion d'Honneur.<ref name="wintrobe"/> He was also a commander of the Ordre national du Mérite and an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.<ref name="cths"/> He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1979<ref name="fas"/> and the {{ill|Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique|fr}} in 1991.<ref name="belg"/> He was an honorary president of the Société française d'hématologie.<ref name="cths"/>
Bessis married Claude Desserteaux in 1952; the couple raised three children.<ref name="nyt"/> Bessis died in Paris on 28 March 1994.<ref name="nyt"/>
==Bibliography== Some of Bessis's published works include:<ref name="cths"/> {{columns-list|colwidth=35em| *''La maladie hémolytique du nouveau-né et la pathologie de l'enfant liée à l'iso-immunisation de la mère'' (1947) *''Cytologie sanguine normale et pathologique'' (1948) *''Traité de cytologie sanguine'' (English translation, 1956) *''Traité de microscopie : instruments et techniques'' (with Albert Policard and Marcel Locquin, 1957) *''Le sang et la transfusion sanguine'' (1958) *''Hématologie clinique'' (with Jean Bernard, 1958) * ''Abrégé d'hématologie'' (with Jean Bernard, 1963) *''Éléments de pathologie cellulaire'' (with Albert Policard, 1969) *''Les cellules du sang normal et pathologique'' (1972; English translation published in 1973) *''Corpuscules : essai sur la forme de globules rouges humains'' (1976) *''Réinterprétation des frottis sanguins'' (1976) }}
==References== {{reflist|30em|refs= <ref name="wintrobe">{{cite book|last=Wintrobe|first=MM|title=Hematology, the Blossoming of a Science: A Story of Inspiration and Effort|url=https://archive.org/details/hematologyblosso0000wint/page/278/mode/2up|year=1985|publisher=Lea & Febiger|isbn=978-0-8121-0961-0|authorlink=Maxwell Wintrobe|pages=278–80|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> <ref name="nyt">{{cite news|title=Dr. Marcel Bessis, French Biologist, 76|date=18 April 1994|work=New York Times}}</ref> <ref name="bernard">{{cite journal |last=Bernard|first=J |title=Remembrance of Professor Marcel Bessis (1917–1994) |journal=Blood Cells Mol Dis |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=152–5 |date=1995 |pmid=8846044 |doi=10.1006/bcmd.1995.0017 |url=}}</ref> <ref name="fas">{{cite web|url=https://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Liste-des-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membres-du-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-b.html|title=Les membres du passé dont le nom commence par B|trans-title=Past members whose names start with B|work=Académie des sciences|language=fr|accessdate=17 April 2022|archive-date=13 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413044239/https://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Liste-des-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membres-du-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-b.html|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="belg">{{cite web|url=http://www.armb.be/index.php?id=1779|title=Marcel BESSIS – Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique|language=fr|work=Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523225851/http://www.armb.be/index.php?id=1779|archivedate=23 May 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> <ref name="cths">{{cite web|first1=Hervé|last1=Danesi|first2=Bruno|last2=Delmas|title=Bessis, Marcel Claude|url=https://cths.fr/an/savant.php?id=111801|work=Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques|language=fr|date=2 January 2013|access-date=30 September 2022|archive-date=14 June 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614232924/http://cths.fr/an/savant.php?id=111801|url-status=live}}</ref> <ref name="berns">{{cite book|last=Berns|first=M.W.|date=2007|chapter=A history of laser scissors (microbeams)|title=Methods in Cell Biology|volume=82|pages=1–58|doi=10.1016/S0091-679X(06)82001-7|pmid=17586253 |isbn=9780123706485 }}</ref> }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bessis, Marcel}} Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour Category:1994 deaths Category:20th-century French medical doctors Category:People from Tunis Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:University of Paris alumni Category:Academic staff of the University of Paris Category:Recipients of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:French hematologists Category:1917 births Category:Inserm directors Category:French recipients of the Legion of Honour