Allen Lein, 89; Professor, Women’s Health Expert

Allen Lein, 89, a founding faculty member of the UC San Diego School of Medicine and an expert on female reproductive health, died March 26 of heart failure in Austin, Texas.

Born in New York City, Lein attended the University of Chicago and earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in zoology, with a focus on endocrinology, from UCLA.

During World War II, he served as an Army aviation physiologist in the War Research Program. He later studied in France as a Guggenheim Fellow.

Lein taught briefly at Ohio State and Vanderbilt University, and then became a fixture at Northwestern University School of Medicine from 1947 until he was recruited to move to La Jolla in 1968.

At Northwestern, Lein taught physiology and rose to assistant dean of graduate studies.

He took a year out in 1954 to work at Caltech with Linus Pauling on problems of the application of chemistry to biology and physiology.

At UC San Diego, Lein taught, performed research, and was associate dean for graduate studies and for academic affairs.

He also served as director of the campus’ Health Professions Honors Program.

The author of an important textbook on the female reproductive system in 1979, Lein continued teaching for several years after taking emeritus status in 1980.