Bengt Robertson

Robertson was born and grew up in Stockholm. As a child he attended the Södra Latins Gymnasium in the Södermalm area of Stockholm, leaving in 1953. Having decided to become a physician, Robertson attended the Karolinska Institute, a medical university and graduated Master of Science in Medicine (Swedish: Läkarexamen) in 1960. Robertson followed the MD with a Doctor of Philosophy degree and was awarded a doctorate in 1968. His thesis was titled: "The intrapulmonary arterial pattern in normal infancy and in transposition of the great arteries".

Robertson was married to Gertie Grossmann, a pediatric surgeon who collaborated with him on surfactant research. Bengt had four children from a previous marriage, consisting of one daughter and three sons.

From 1974 to 2000 he was director of the department of Experimental Perinatal Pathology at the Karolinska Institute.{{cite journal |last1=Speer |first1=C. P. |title=Prof. Bengt Robertson, Stockholm |journal=Zeitschrift für Geburtshilfe und Neonatologie |date=August 2009 |volume=213 |issue=4 |pages=117 |doi=10.1055/s-0029-1225636|s2cid=70450050 }} In 1976, he was appointed as visiting professor at the University of Toronto. This was followed by two visiting scholar positions to the University of Perugia in 1985 and 1987. From 1994 to 1997, Robertson was also director of the department of pediatric pathology at Karolinska University Hospital. In 2002, Robertson was promoted to an adjunct professor in Perinatal Pathology at the Karolinska Institute.

In 1959, Mary Avery and Jere Mede conducted a trial at the department of physiology at Harvard University in Boston, that showed that respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) was due to surfactant deficiency.{{cite journal |last1=Avery |first1=Mary Ellen |title=Surface Properties in Relation to Atelectasis and Hyaline Membrane Disease |journal=Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine |date=1 May 1959 |volume=97 |issue=5_PART_I |pages=517 |doi=10.1001/archpedi.1959.02070010519001}} Two trials followed that used synthetic Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine surfactant. The surfactant treatment was delivered as a mist via a nebulizer but the trials showed mixed results. Robillard stated it seemed worthy of further investigation.{{cite journal |last1=Robillard |first1=E |last2=ALARIE |first2=Y |last3=DAGENAIS-PERUSSE |first3=P |last4=BARIL |first4=E |last5=GUILBEAULT |first5=A |title=Microaerosol administration of synthetic beta-gamma-dipalmitoyl-l-alpha-lecithin in the respiratory distress syndome: a preliminary report. |journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal |date=11 January 1964 |volume=90 |issue=2 |pages=55–7 |pmid=14104151|pmc=1922135 }} The second study by Jacqueline Chu and her colleagues John Clements, Marshall Klaus and Bill Tooley in Singapore,{{cite journal |last1=Chu |first1=J |last2=Clements |first2=JA |last3=Cotton |first3=EK |last4=Klaus |first4=MH |last5=Sweet |first5=AY |last6=Tooley |first6=WH |last7=Bradley |first7=BL |last8=Brandorff |first8=LC |title=Neonatal pulmonary ischemia. I. Clinical and physiological studies. |journal=Pediatrics |date=October 1967 |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=Suppl:709-82 |pmid=6053115}} implied that the underlying cause of RDS was low blood flow instead instead of a deficiency of surfactant.{{cite journal |last1=Halliday |first1=Henry L |title=The fascinating story of surfactant |journal=Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health |date=April 2017 |volume=53 |issue=4 |pages=327–332 |doi=10.1111/jpc.13500}}

In the late 1960s, Bengt started to collaborate with English-Swedish obstetrician Goran Enhörning (1924-2013) at the Karolinska Institute. Enhörning had been researching RDS in the 1960s and had developed a number of clinical surfactants and therapies to treat RDS.{{cite news |title=Goran Enhorning |url=https://medicine.buffalo.edu/departments/pediatrics/news_and_events.host.html/content/shared/university/news/ub-reporter-articles/briefs/2013/obit_goran_enhorning.detail.html |access-date=7 January 2025 |agency=Department of Pediatrics, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences |publisher=University of Buffalo |date=4 April 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250107202759/https://medicine.buffalo.edu/departments/pediatrics/news_and_events.host.html/content/shared/university/news/ub-reporter-articles/briefs/2013/obit_goran_enhorning.detail.html |archive-date=7 January 2025 |location=Buffalo}} Together, Bengt and Enhörning conducted two trials to discover the reasons for the failure of nebulised synthetic surfactant. They described that when natural surfactant was installed directly into the trachea of premature rabbits, normal lung expansion was achieved, and the animals survived.{{cite journal |last1=Enhörning |first1=Göran |last2=Robertson |first2=Bengt |title=Lung expansion in the premature rabbit fetus after tracheal deposition of surfactant |journal=Pediatrics |date=1 July 1972 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=58–66 |doi=10.1542/peds.50.1.58|pmid=4483194 |s2cid=21760100 }}{{cite journal |last1=Enhörning |first1=G |last2=Grossman |first2=G |last3=Robertson |first3=B |title=Tracheal deposition of surfactant before the first breath |journal=American Review of Respiratory Disease |date=June 1973 |volume=107 |issue=6 |pages=921-927}} The discovery that the treatment effect was dependent on the surfactant preparation containing natural surfactant proteins and that the surfactant was administered as a bolus dose directly into the trachea, i.e. to be effective the treatment needed to be nebulised directly into the lungs of preterm infants, which resulted in the enhanced expansion of the lungs by air. During the same period they were joined by Gertie Grossmann, a peadiatric surgeon based at the institute. The group worked together during the early 1970s until Enhörning left for an appointment at the University of Toronto in 1971. Bengt and Grossmann continuing the collaborating into the 1980s. The group used a primate model to test the effects of surfactant on the lung function and morphology that had been developed in Toronto. In the first trial in 1978, a surfactant obtained from the lungs of rabbits was tested on a group of 12 rhesus monkeys with 6 monkeys in the control group.{{cite journal |last1=Enhorning |first1=G. |last2=Hill |first2=D. |last3=Sherwood |first3=G. |last4=Cutz |first4=E. |last5=Robertson |first5=B. |last6=Bryan |first6=C. |title=Improved ventilation of prematurely delivered primates following tracheal deposition of surfactant |journal=American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology |date=November 1978 |volume=132 |issue=5 |pages=529–536 |doi=10.1016/0002-9378(78)90748-2}} The trial proved that a natural surfactant "held promise" as a treatment for RDS.

In the autumn of 1984, Bengt became the leader of a group of neonatologist and surfactant researchers, known as "The Collaborative European Multicenter

Study Group", colloquially known as "the Curosurf family", who were formed to test Curosurf in the first large international multicentre clinical trial.

Robertson received many honours throughout his life. In 1996, he was first recognised when he was awarded the King Faisal International Prize. Two years later in 1998, Robertson along with Tore Curstedt was awarded the Hilda and Alfred Eriksson Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.{{cite journal |last1=Halliday |first1=Henry L. |last2=Speer |first2=Christian P. |title=Historical Perspectives |journal=NeoReviews |date=1 September 2010 |volume=11 |issue=9 |pages=e471–e473 |doi=10.1542/neo.11-9-e471}} In 2002, he was awarded the Erich Saling Maternité Prize given by the European Association of Perinatal Medicine.{{cite web |title=Erich Saling Maternity Prize |url=https://europerinatal.eu/maternite_prize.php |website=EAPM Association - About Us |access-date=10 September 2023 |location=Milan, Italy |page=en}} This was followed in 2004 with the awarding of the Lars Werkö Prize by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation along with Tore Curstedt.{{cite journal |last1=Speer |first1=Christian P. |last2=Halliday |first2=Henry L. |title=Tore Curstedt - The Basic Science Creator of Porcine Surfactant |journal=Neonatology |date=2014 |volume=106 |issue=3 |pages=242–244 |doi=10.1159/000365128|doi-access=free |pmid=25300948 }}

• {{cite book |last1=Robertson |first1=Bengt |last2=van Golde |first2=Lambert M. G. |last3=Batenburg |first3=J. J. |title=Pulmonary surfactant: from molecular biology to clinical practice |date=1992 |publisher=Elsevier |location=Amsterdam |isbn=9780444894755}}
• {{cite book |last1=Robertson |first1=Bengt |last2=Taeusch |first2=H. William |title=Surfactant therapy for lung disease |date=1995 |publisher=Dekker |location=New York |isbn=9780824795023}}

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• {{cite book |editor1-last=Robertson |editor1-first=Bengt |editor2-last=Taeusch |editor2-first=H. William |title=Surfactant therapy for lung disease |date=19 July 1995 |publisher=Dekker |location=New York |isbn=978-0824795023|series=Lung biology in health and disease|volume=84}}

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Category:Biography articles needing translation from German Wikipedia

Category:1935 births

Category:2008 deaths

Category:20th-century Swedish physicians

Category:Karolinska Institute alumni