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Cyril Legum

Cyril Legum was an Israeli pediatrician and geneticist who founded the genetics institute of the Tel Aviv municipal hospitals and directed it for 28 years.

1932 to 2014Founding Tel Aviv's hospital genetics instituteFetal protein screening in pregnancyDown syndrome risk assessment method

Born: 15 July 1932, South Africa
Died: 2 March 2014
Occupation: physician

Cyril Legum was born in 1932 in South Africa

Cyril Legum was born in South Africa in 1932. He completed his medical studies in Johannesburg in 1958.

He immigrated to Israel in 1958 and volunteered for the paratroopers as a combat doctor. After his discharge he trained in pediatrics at Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv and finished in 1967. From 1967 to 1970 he trained in medical genetics in the United States, at Johns Hopkins University, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Stanford University.

Back in Israel he set up a genetics unit at Hadassah, and later founded the genetics institute at Ichilov. He directed the institute of the Tel Aviv municipal hospitals for 28 years and was a professor of genetics at the Tel Aviv University medical school. He was the first geneticist to add the fetal protein test to genetic screening in pregnancy, and developed a method to assess the risk of Down syndrome.

He married Shula Legum in 1959, and they had 4 sons. He died in 2014 and was buried in Kiryat Shaul Cemetery.

Cyril Legum's life in 6 milestones

1932
Born in South Africa.
1958
Completed medical studies in Johannesburg and immigrated to Israel.
1959
Married Shula Legum.
1967
Finished pediatric training and went to the United States to train in genetics.
1970
Studied the cause of a lung disease in a large Samaritan family.
2014
Died and was buried in Kiryat Shaul Cemetery.