| Bengt A. Robertson | |
| Birth Date: | 14 September 1935 |
| Birth Place: | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Education: | Karolinska Institute |
| Thesis Title: | The intrapulmonary arterial pattern in normal infancy and in transposition of the great arteries |
| Thesis Url: | https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00543991 |
| Thesis Year: | 1968 |
| Doctoral Advisors: | )--> |
| Known For: | Corusurf |
| Spouses: | )--> |
| Partners: | )--> |
Bengt A. Robertson was a Swedish physician and perinatal pathologist. Robertson was primarily known for the development of the synthetic lung surfactant known as Corusurf that brought relief to very small babies suffering from infant respiratory distress syndrome (RDS).[1] [2] [3] From 1974 to 2000 he was the director of the division for experimental perinatal pathology in the department of women and child Health at the Karolinska Institute.
In 1996 he was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine together with Tetsurō Fujiwara for contributions to the understanding of neonatal medicine.[4] [5]
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.[1] 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.[5] 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".[5]
Robertson was married to Gertie Grossmann, a pediatric surgeon who collaborated with him on surfactant research.[1] Bengt had four children from a previous marriage, consisting one daughter and three sons.[1]
From 1974 to 2000 he was director of the department of Experimental Perinatal Pathology at the Karolinska Institute.[6] From 1994 to 1997, Robertson was also director of the department of pediatric pathology at Karolinska University Hospital.[1] In 2002, Robertson was promoted to a adjunct professor in Perinatal Pathology at the Karolinska Institute.[1]
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.[7] 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.[8] The second study by Jacqueline Chu and her colleagues John Clements, Marshall Klaus and Bill Tooley in Singapore,[9] implied that the underlying cause of RDS was low blood flow instead instead of a deficiency of surfactant.[10]
In 1972, 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.[11] [12] 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, was a fine discovery, i.e. to be effective the treatment needed to be nebulised directly into the lungs of preterm infants,[2] which resulted in the enhanced expansion of the lungs by air.[12]
When Robertson was a visiting scientist of the department of pathology at Toronto University between 1977-1979, he met obstetrician Göran Enhörning who was based at the Toronto Western Hospital. Enhörning, like Robertson was from Stockholm and would become his principal collaborator.[13]
In the autumn of 1984, Bengt became the leader of a group of neonatologist and surfactant researchers, known as "The Collaborative European MulticenterStudy Group", who were formed to test Curosurf in the first large international multicentre clinical trial.[2]
Robertson received many honours throughout his life. In 1996, he was first recognised when he was awarded the King Faisal International Prize.[5] 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.[14] In 2002, he was awarded the Erich Saling Maternité Prize given by the European Association of Perinatal Medicine.[15] This was followed in 2004 with the awarding of the Lars Werkö Prize by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation along with Tore Curstedt.[16]