Marcel Bessis
Marcel Claude Bessis was a French physician known for research on blood cells.
Bessis was born in Tunis on 15 November 1917. He was educated at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris, France. He developed an interest in microscopy in his teenage years and went on to study medicine at the University of Paris. During the Second World War, he served as a military physician and pioneered the technique of exchange transfusion to treat war injuries. He graduated with a medical degree in 1944. 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.
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. He invented new instruments to aid his research and developed techniques for manipulating cells using laser microbeams. Maxwell Wintrobe credited Bessis with coining the terms stomatocyte, echinocyte and discocyte.
Bessis was born in Tunis on 15 November 1917. He was educated at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris, France. He developed an interest in microscopy in his teenage years and went on to study medicine at the University of Paris. During the Second World War, he served as a military physician and pioneered the technique of exchange transfusion to treat war injuries. He graduated with a medical degree in 1944. 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.
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. He invented new instruments to aid his research and developed techniques for manipulating cells using laser microbeams. Maxwell Wintrobe credited Bessis with coining the terms stomatocyte, echinocyte and discocyte.
