Klaus Patau

Klaus Patau (1908–1975) was a German-born American geneticist who in 1960 first reported the extra chromosome in trisomy 13. .

The syndrome caused by trisomy 13 is sometimes called Patau syndrome. It is also known as Bartholin-Patau syndrome since the clinical picture associated with trisomy 13 was described by Thomas Bartholin in 1656. .

Klaus Patau was in the Department of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as was his wife and collaborator, the Finnish cytogeneticist Eeva Therman (1916-2004).