Roy Hertz

Roy Hertz

Roy Hertz (born  June 19, 1909 in Cleveland , †  October 28, 2002 in Hollywood, Maryland ) was an American endocrinologist and oncologist . He worked from 1941 to 1966 for the National Institutes of Health , including from 1946 at the National Cancer Institute , and described the first successful treatment of a solid metastatic tumor by chemotherapy . In recognition of this achievement, he was awarded the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1972 and was accepted into the National Academy of Sciences .

Life

Roy Hertz was born in Cleveland in 1909 and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1930 , where he also received his PhD in zoology three years later and graduated in medicine in 1939 . He also received a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 1940 .

From 1941 he worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), five years later he became director of the endocrinology division of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He worked for the NIH until 1966 and served as Scientific Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development from 1965/1966 . He later worked as professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and in 1972/1973 as director of clinical research at New York Medical College .

Roy Hertz had his first marriage from 1934 and his second marriage after the death of his wife from 1965, as well as the father of a son and a daughter. He died of heart failure in Hollywood, Maryland in 2002 .

Act

Roy Hertz (center)

During his work at the NCI in the 1950s , Roy Hertz and his colleague Min Chiu Li successfully treated patients with chorionic epithelioma , a usually invasive and aggressively growing tumor of the uterus , by using methotrexate and later by combining it with actinomycin D .

It was thus possible to show for the first time that a complete and permanent cure of a metastatic solid cancer disease is possible with the help of a chemotherapeutic substance. In addition, Roy Hertz, who published more than 150 scientific publications during his career, contributed to the development of the birth control pill through work on progesterone together with the chemist Carl Djerassi .

Awards

Roy Hertz and Min Chiu Li received the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1972 for their groundbreaking study on the treatment of chorionic epithelioma, considered one of the most important breakthroughs in cancer therapy development . In the same year, Roy Hertz was admitted to the National Academy of Sciences and received the Anne Frankel Rosenthal Memorial Award for Cancer Research from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1957 and the Fred Conrad Koch Award from the Endocrine Society in 1996.

Works (selection)

• Choriocarcinoma and Related Gestational Trophoblastic Tumors in Women. New York 1978
• A Quest for Better Contraception: The Ford Foundation's Contribution to Reproductive Science and Contraceptive Development, 1959-1983. New York 1984 (as co-author)

literature

• Ivan Oransky: Obituary: Roy Hertz. In: The Lancet . Volume 360. Edition 9348 of December 7, 2002, p. 1893
• Jonathan P. Yarris, Alan J. Hunter: Roy Hertz, MD (1909-2002): The Cure of Choriocarcinoma and its Impact on the Development of Chemotherapy for Cancer. In: Gynecologic Oncology . 89 (2) / 2003. Elsevier, pp. 193-198, ISSN  0090-8258
• Hertz, Roy. In: James Stuart Olson: The History of Cancer: An Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Press, New York and London 1989, ISBN 0-313-25889-9 , p. 52
• D. Lynn Loriaux: Roy Hertz (1909-2002). In: The Endocrinologist. 14 (3) / 2004. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, pp. 117/118, ISSN  1051-2144

Web links

• American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society: Roy Hertz, MD, Ph.D., 1909–2002 (English, with picture)