- Email: [email protected]
Jean-Pierre Capron (1943–2012)
Clinics and Research in Hepatology and Gastroenterology (2012) 36, 311
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OBITUARY
Jean-Pierre Capron (1943—2012)
With the death of Professor Jean-Pierre Capron, the French liver community loses one of his most talented and enthusiastic leaders. Jean-Pierre Capron was born on October 15th, 1943, in Valincourt-les-Pas, a small village of the North of France, where his father was a schoolteacher. After studying medicine at Lille medical school, he accomplished his residency in Amiens. He wanted to become a gastroenterologist, but there was no gastroenterology department in Amiens. He went back to Lille in 1970 in the gastroenterology department of Professor Jean-Claude Paris. During these years, he attended regularly clinical meetings in Paris, particularly the Saturday afternoon clinical conferences of Professor Jacques Caroli at hospital Saint-Antoine, those of Professor Marc Cerf at hospital Bichat and those of Professor Jean-Pierre Benhamou at hospital Beaujon. He was then appointed Assistant Professor (Chef de clinique) and spent a full year in the liver diseases department at hospital Beaujon in 1973. That year determined his orientation in hepatology, while his colleague and friend Jean-Louis Dupas was in charge of gastroenterology. Together, they progressively transformed the internal medicine department of Amiens University Hospital into a leading hepatology and gastroenterology center, of which he was Chief from 1986 to his early retirement in 2002. He was a member of the French Association for the Study of the Liver and of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. I was fortunate enough to better know him during that year at Beaujon. He quickly shared my interest in biliary diseases and gallstones and, in parallel with his clinical and teaching activities, he actively took part in the research 2210-7401/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2012.08.006
program in my group at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) research laboratory. In his first paper in Gastroenterology, he showed that prolonged treatment with phenobarbital markedly increased the plasma clearance of sulfobromopthalein and indocyanine green, two dyes widely used at this time to evaluate hepatic function. This was related to an increase in hepatic blood flow and was associated with an increased activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes in the liver (in particular cytochrome P-450) and hypertrophy of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. This observation initiated a series of studies on the effect of drugs on biliary function and composition and a long-life interest in the pathophysiology and epidemiology of gallstones. But Jean-Pierre was much too open-minded to limit himself to bile and gallstones: he authored nearly 300 papers on practically all fields of hepatology, from portal hypertension to hepatitis B and C, not to forget gastroenterology with Jean-Louis Dupas, in prestigious journals including The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Jean-Pierre Capron was also a brilliant speaker and an enthusiastic teacher: his conferences were always enlightening and punctuated with a sense of humour of which he had the secret. He was also a fine connaisseur of cinema and was fan of sports, including football, athletics and cycling. For many, meeting Jean-Pierre changed the life. He was truly an extraordinary man. To a young colleague who visited him a few weeks before his death, he asked ‘‘Do you know what is a friend? A friend is someone who knows you well. . . and, nevertheless, loves you’’. He will be sorely missed by his wife, Dominique, to whom go our affectionate thoughts, by his children, and by many others, including me. But his contributions will live on. Serge Erlinger University of Paris 7, 1422, route des Mauvares, 13840 Rognes, France E-mail address: [email protected]
Available online at
www.sciencedirect.com
OBITUARY
Jean-Pierre Capron (1943—2012)
With the death of Professor Jean-Pierre Capron, the French liver community loses one of his most talented and enthusiastic leaders. Jean-Pierre Capron was born on October 15th, 1943, in Valincourt-les-Pas, a small village of the North of France, where his father was a schoolteacher. After studying medicine at Lille medical school, he accomplished his residency in Amiens. He wanted to become a gastroenterologist, but there was no gastroenterology department in Amiens. He went back to Lille in 1970 in the gastroenterology department of Professor Jean-Claude Paris. During these years, he attended regularly clinical meetings in Paris, particularly the Saturday afternoon clinical conferences of Professor Jacques Caroli at hospital Saint-Antoine, those of Professor Marc Cerf at hospital Bichat and those of Professor Jean-Pierre Benhamou at hospital Beaujon. He was then appointed Assistant Professor (Chef de clinique) and spent a full year in the liver diseases department at hospital Beaujon in 1973. That year determined his orientation in hepatology, while his colleague and friend Jean-Louis Dupas was in charge of gastroenterology. Together, they progressively transformed the internal medicine department of Amiens University Hospital into a leading hepatology and gastroenterology center, of which he was Chief from 1986 to his early retirement in 2002. He was a member of the French Association for the Study of the Liver and of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. I was fortunate enough to better know him during that year at Beaujon. He quickly shared my interest in biliary diseases and gallstones and, in parallel with his clinical and teaching activities, he actively took part in the research 2210-7401/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2012.08.006
program in my group at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) research laboratory. In his first paper in Gastroenterology, he showed that prolonged treatment with phenobarbital markedly increased the plasma clearance of sulfobromopthalein and indocyanine green, two dyes widely used at this time to evaluate hepatic function. This was related to an increase in hepatic blood flow and was associated with an increased activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes in the liver (in particular cytochrome P-450) and hypertrophy of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. This observation initiated a series of studies on the effect of drugs on biliary function and composition and a long-life interest in the pathophysiology and epidemiology of gallstones. But Jean-Pierre was much too open-minded to limit himself to bile and gallstones: he authored nearly 300 papers on practically all fields of hepatology, from portal hypertension to hepatitis B and C, not to forget gastroenterology with Jean-Louis Dupas, in prestigious journals including The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Jean-Pierre Capron was also a brilliant speaker and an enthusiastic teacher: his conferences were always enlightening and punctuated with a sense of humour of which he had the secret. He was also a fine connaisseur of cinema and was fan of sports, including football, athletics and cycling. For many, meeting Jean-Pierre changed the life. He was truly an extraordinary man. To a young colleague who visited him a few weeks before his death, he asked ‘‘Do you know what is a friend? A friend is someone who knows you well. . . and, nevertheless, loves you’’. He will be sorely missed by his wife, Dominique, to whom go our affectionate thoughts, by his children, and by many others, including me. But his contributions will live on. Serge Erlinger University of Paris 7, 1422, route des Mauvares, 13840 Rognes, France E-mail address: [email protected]