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James E. Bowman, professor emeritus in pathology and medicine at the University of Chicago, died in September after a long battle with cancer at the age of 88. Dr. Bowman was an internationally recognized expert on inherited blood diseases, population genetics and pathology. He was the first tenured African American professor in the University of Chicago's Biological Sciences Division, and was an advocate for minority scholars entering medical careers.
Dr. Bowman earned his BS in biology from Howard University. He entered Howard Medical School in the fall of 1943, but was immediately drafted into the US Army as part of a specialized program that provided medical education in a three-year program. He completed his internship at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, DC, and an internship at Provident Hospital in Chicago. He subsequently accepted residency at Chicago's St. Luke's Hospital, becoming the first African American resident to train there. After completing residency, Dr. Bowman served as chairman of pathology at Provident Hospital for three years. He was drafted again in 1953 and served as chief of pathology for the Medical Nutrition Laboratory at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver until 1955.
After completing his service obligations, Dr. Bowman and his wife moved to Iran, where Dr. Bowman served as chairman of pathology at Nemazee Hospital in Shiraz. While there, he witnessed a number of diseases for the first time, including favism. His research centered on favism put him in close collaboration with researchers at the University of Chicago, who had first described the enzyme deficiency (G6PD) and its association with antimalarial medications. In 1962, he joined the faculty at the University of Chicago as an assistant professor...