Ralph Douglas Kenneth Reye ( /raɪ/ "rye"; 5 April 1912 – 16 July 1977) was an Australian pathologist. ^{[1] [2]} In 1958, he discovered a muscular disease that was later named nemaline myopathy. ^[3] A brain disease he and his colleagues described in 1963 is eponymously known as Reye's syndrome. ^[4]

Life and career

Reye attended Townsville Grammar School and the University of Sydney, where he completed undergraduate studies in medicine and was awarded a MBBS in 1937. He was later awarded an MD from the University of Sydney in 1945. ^{[2] [4]} Reye joined the staff of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children (RAHC) in 1939 as a pathologist, and remained there for all his working life. In 1965 Reye was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. On 16 July 1977, Reye died at the age of 65, of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm at Royal North Shore Hospital, 24 hours after he had retired from the RAHC. ^[2]

Contributions

Nemaline myopathy

In 1958, Reye identified a disease that involved muscular weakness in which the muscle fibres appeared as thick threads or rods. ^[5] He did not publish his discovery as it was argued that the microscopic observations could be artefacts. ^[3] Later known as nemaline myopathy, the medical condition was established independently by American researchers P.E. Cohen and G. M. Shy in 1963. ^{[6] [7]}

Reye syndrome

In 1963, Reye, Graeme Morgan, and Jim Baral reported a kind of brain disease in The Lancet. ^[8] The disease was later known as Reye syndrome. ^{[2] [4]}

References