Daniel H. Mintz (1930–2020): An Extraordinary Physician-Scientist and a Pioneer in Islet Transplantation

Abstract

Daniel H. Mintz Fig. 1 was born in Far Rockaway, New York, in 1930 to European Jewish parents, Jacob and Fanny, and grew up on Long Island, New York, where his parents immigrated in the early 1900s. In his youth he excelled both in sports (basketball) and academically; he was accepted as a premed student at St. Bonaventure College, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree cum laude. He entered New York Medical College, which had no quotas for Jewish students (unlike many other schools at that time), and completed his medical training in 1956. (Fig. 2) While serving his internship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, he met his future wife, Dawn, a hospital nurse. In 1961, Dan entered residency at Georgetown University School of Medicine and joined the faculty, initiating his research career under the mentorship of Dr. Larry Kyle, Chairman of Medicine, studying parathyroid and bone disorders (1). Daniel Mintz in 2006. Daniel Mintz as a young student, and with his parents and sister at his medical graduation ceremony, New York Medical College, 1956. Dan’s first love was clinical medicine, so it is no surprise that he was appointed Chief of Medicine at the then District of Columbia General Hospital in 1964. He once recounted the story that kept him in academic medicine after planning to start a private practice in Leesburg, Northern Virginia. Dr. Kyle called him into his office and told him in no uncertain terms that he was making a mistake and should remain in academia. As Dan recalled years later, “In those days you did what your boss told you to do!” This career-changing decision was a testament to Dan’s primary reason for entering medicine—to be a healer of the sick. His capacity for responding to people in need strongly influenced his …