Louis Jacob Elsas II

Dr. Louis J. “Skip” Elsas II passed away peacefully early Sunday morning, September 16th, after a seven-year battle with cancer. He was surrounded by family and caregivers, who loved him deeply. He was 75.

Visitation will be on Thursday, September 20, 2012 from 6 to 8 p.m. at H.M. Patterson & Son-Spring Hill located at 1020 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30309. A service will be held on Friday, September 21, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. at The Temple, 1589 Peachtree St., NE Atlanta, GA 30309. A reception will immediately follow the service, and a private burial at Oakland Cemetery will follow the reception.

A native Atlantan, Skip was born on February 10th, 1937 at Emory University Hospital. Under the strict yet loving guidance of his parents Herbert Rothschild Elsas and Edith Levy Elsas, Skip learned at an early age the invaluable virtues of a good education. As a young child, he attended the original Eva Edwards Lovett School, followed by the Marist School, then followed by Phillips Andover Academy, where Skip graduated in The Great Class of ‘54.

He pursued his higher education at Harvard College, where in 1958 he received a B.S. in Biochemistry. In 1962, Skip graduated with an M.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the storied Raven Society, and — due to his tremendous scholarship and leadership skills — was elected into the exalted Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AOA).

Upon graduating medical school, Skip entered that common, existential phase in life, where — like many recent graduates — he sought to establish his role in the world. Bolstered by his unparalleled intellectual curiosity and a deep affection for humanity, Skip set out to become a “triple threat” in the medical world: a man whose sense of self was defined by a firm belief in education (Teacher), active service (Physician), and research (Scientist).

This postgraduate path first led Skip to Yale University, where he served his internal medicine residency under the tutelage of Dr. Paul Beeson and his fellowship training in metabolism under Dr. Phil Bondy. He was then subsequently honored by the esteemed Dr. Leon Rosenberg, who invited Skip to be his first fellow in medical genetics — an appointment that would forever shape Skip’s perspective on the world of medicine.

Under Dr. Rosenberg’s supervision, Skip would continue for two additional years at Yale — now as a faculty member — where the two young doctors sought to pioneer a unique, forward-thinking approach to medical genetics. Skip’s desire to lead his own program and his incessant longing to return to his family roots, however, ultimately compelled him to depart Yale and head back to Atlanta, where Emory University eagerly welcomed the hugely talented Dr. Skip Elsas with open arms.

In 1970, Skip accepted a faculty position at the Emory School of Medicine and — recognizing that genetics was the future of medicine — immediately established the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. During his years at Yale, Skip had demonstrated that the field of medical genetics could not only diagnose a genetic risk for disease pre-symptomatically, but also prevent the disease through appropriate intervention. Now back in Georgia, Skip was the driving force behind a state-wide newborn screening health initiative, a pioneering and ultimately life-saving accomplishment that would become the flagship standard for newborn screening procedures across the world.

Skip’s development of new treatments for infants born with genetic metabolic disorders — such as PKU, galactosemia, and maple syrup urine disease — gained him both national and international acclaim. In addition — being the consummate mentor and physician scientist — Skip founded the course "Human and Molecular Genetics," which became a national model and helped define medical genetics as a specialty recognized by the American Medical Association. Under Skip’s supervision, Emory became a training ground and an academic blueprint for geneticists and genetics programs across the world.

In 2002, after 32 years, Skip retired from Emory as a Professor Emeritus. Yet, always a tireless advocate for science education, Skip’s “retirement” led him away from his dream of relaxing on a sailboat and instead to the University of Miami, where he launched a second career. At 65 years of age, he became the first director of the Dr. John T. MacDonald Foundation Center for Medical Genetics at the Miller School of Medicine.

Borrowing from his own accomplishments at Emory, Skip built a large and very successful enterprise with the features of academic excellence, university and community service that marked his tenure at Emory. In Miami, he continued to make great strides in treating inherited biochemical disorders in newborns and was instrumental in expanding newborn screening in Florida. In his final years, although starting to feel the ravages of his cancer, Skip unflaggingly and tenaciously established yet another high-caliber program, one which focused on the study of proteins produced by genes and how they worked, with the goal of developing more refined screening techniques that would lead to earlier diagnoses.

In 2012, his disease proved too overwhelming, and Skip finally stepped away from full-time academia. As a native Atlantan, he felt it important that he return home, where he might end his days in the city in which his life began; in January, Skip settled back in Atlanta. True to his nature, he refused to surrender neither to his ever-increasing pain nor to complacency, and instead continued to remain active up to the very end, contacting his colleagues and submitting grants for future studies even from his Atlanta bed. Only days before he passed, Skip had been communicating with his beloved mentor now colleague Dr. Rosenberg, discussing new strides in DNA studies.

Skip is survived by his wife Nancy Terrell Elsas; his daughters Nancy Louise Elsas, Margaret Elsas Hartley and her husband John Charles Hartley; his son Louis Jacob “Jake” Elsas III; his grandsons Stephen Terrell Hartley, Oren, Robert and Emmett Elsas; Granddaughter Sarah Emily Hartley; brother Herbert Alan Elsas, Sr. and his wife Katharine Ellis Elsas, and their children Herbert Alan Elsas, Jr., and Charles Ellis Elsas and his wife Ann Lovett Elsas, and their children; Sister-In-Law Dandridge Terrell Penick and her husband Paul McNeil Penick, II, and their children Paul McNeil Penick, III and his husband Louis Joseph Cubba, and Nancy Dandridge Riffe and her husband Michael Stanley Riffe, and their children; and his numerous loving caregivers.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to any one of Skip’s most-cherished organizations: The Elsas Fund at Phillips Andover Academy, Emory University Department of Pediatrics, The Temple Atlanta, Childrens Hospital of Atlanta, and the

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Online condolences may be made at www.hmpattersonspringhill.com.