SearchEmeritus Professor Peter Beighton
- 15 June, 2023
- Ehlers-Danlos in the news
We were sorry to hear today of the death, on 14 June 2023, of Emeritus Professor Peter Beighton, whose work (together with his wife’s) led to the Beighton score, a method to assess joint hypermobility. Professor Beighton’s lifelong research involved inherited disorders of the skeleton and connective tissues and other genetic conditions and he was a medical advisor to EDS UK until 2016.
Born in England in 1934 and qualifying in medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, University of London in 1957, Professor Beighton was appointed as Professor of Human Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Cape Town in 1972 and from 1983-1998 he was also Director of the MRC Unit for Medical Genetics.
Image provided by Wikipedia. See below article for attribution*
Professor Beighton received several awards including the gold medal of the British Orthopaedic Association, the President’s Medallion of the South African Orthopaedic Association, the Smith & Nephew literary award and the silver medal of the South African Medical Research Council. In 2002, he was the first recipient of the newly established Order of Mapungubwe – bronze, which was bestowed for lifetime achievement as a scientist, and for research into the inherited disorders of the skeleton.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh and also held Fellowships of the University of Cape Town (UCT), the British Society of Rheumatology, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society, South Africa. In 1999, at the age of 65 years he obtained the degree of Master of Philosophy in History by external thesis at the University of Lancaster, UK. Professor Beighton retired with Emeritus status at the end of 1999, retaining his links with UCT, and collaborating with the University of the Western Cape Faculty of Dentistry. In 2014 at the age of 80 years he was still employed part-time in the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences as a Senior Scholar.
Our sincere condolences go to Professor Beighton’s family, friends and colleagues.
*Image of Professor Beighton is by Peter Blackpool and is provided under license from Wikipedia