Roy Hertz

Abstract

Endocrinologist, leading researcher at the US National Cancer Institute, showed solid tumours could be treated with chemotherapy, Lasker Award winner.Born June 19, 1909, in Cleveland, Ohio, USA; died aged 93 years of congestive heart failure in Hollywood, Maryland, USA, on Oct 28, 2002.In 1956, gestational choriocarcinoma was a highly lethal disease. But that year, Roy Hertz, a researcher at the US National Cancer Institute, and a colleague, Min Chiu Li, reported that they had cured the tumour with methotrexate.Hertz, who admitted the first patient to the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Center in 1953 when that centre opened, was drawn to methotrexate, which inteferes with the metabolism of folic acid, by work he had done on the need for folic acid in the development of the female reproductive tract. When Li told him about a patient at a hospital in New York with a tumour that secreted chorionic gonadotropin, Hertz thought to use metho-trexate's antifolic acid properties against it. The drug worked, and after refinements to the chemotherapy regimen—the first used to treat a solid tumour—Hertz and Li won the Lasker Award in 1972 for their work.“He had a major impact on cancer therapy”, Alan Rabson, now deputy director of the National Cancer Institute, told The Lancet. “Showing that it wasn't only leukaemias that were curable with chemotherapy was a pivotal step. It opened up the rest of the field”.The endocrinologist joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1941, and became director of the endocrinology section of the NIH's National Cancer Institute in 1946. He remained at the NIH until 1966. During that time, Hertz's work on progesterone analogues led to the development of the birth control pill—Carl Djerassi had sent him norethisterone, an orally effective synthetic hormone similar to progesterone, in 1951. He also researched a derivative of dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), which was eventually used to treat adrenal tumours and vitamin-hormone interactions.Hertz later became scientific director of the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, served as professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, and then research professor, at George Washington University, and worked with Rockefeller University's Population Council. From 1972 until 1973, he served as a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at New York Medical College. In the late 1970s, long before anyone else had raised such concerns, Hertz warned that oestrogenic animal-feed additives could increase the risk of cancer in hormonally sensitive tissues such as the breast. As late as December, 1999, he was presenting research on the possible protective effects of HIV against gestational trophoblastic disease, a topic he turned his attention to later in his career.Hertz was author of more than 150 research papers, starting with a study in the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology in 1932, “Gonadotropin Action of Phyone on Juvenile Female Rabbits, and a book, Choriocarcinoma and Related Gestational Trophoblastic Tumors in Women. Hertz received his bachelor's degree in 1930 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from which he also graduated with a PhD in zoology in 1933 and a medical degree in 1939. In 1940, he received a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In addition to the Lasker, Hertz, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, won many other awards and honours, including the Anne Frankel Rosenthal Memorial Award for Cancer Research of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the 1996 Fred Conrad Koch Award from the Endocrine Society, and the Pioneers in Reproductive Biology award of the American Fertility Society.He is survived by two children, Margaret Brodkin and Jeremy Hertz; two stepchildren, Michael Oberdorfer and Barbara Verdin; 13 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. His first wife, Pearl Fennel, died in 1962. In 1965, he married Dorothy Anne Wright Oberdorfer, a psychiatric social worker who died shortly before Hertz on Oct 17, 2002.Rabson described Hertz as “a wonderful mentor to a large number of young endocrinol-ogists”. He is remembered by many colleagues as an inspirational and pioneering researcher. Endocrinologist, leading researcher at the US National Cancer Institute, showed solid tumours could be treated with chemotherapy, Lasker Award winner. Born June 19, 1909, in Cleveland, Ohio, USA; died aged 93 years of congestive heart failure in Hollywood, Maryland, USA, on Oct 28, 2002. In 1956, gestational choriocarcinoma was a highly lethal disease. But that year, Roy Hertz, a researcher at the US National Cancer Institute, and a colleague, Min Chiu Li, reported that they had cured the tumour with methotrexate. Hertz, who admitted the first patient to the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Center in 1953 when that centre opened, was drawn to methotrexate, which inteferes with the metabolism of folic acid, by work he had done on the need for folic acid in the development of the female reproductive tract. When Li told him about a patient at a hospital in New York with a tumour that secreted chorionic gonadotropin, Hertz thought to use metho-trexate's antifolic acid properties against it. The drug worked, and after refinements to the chemotherapy regimen—the first used to treat a solid tumour—Hertz and Li won the Lasker Award in 1972 for their work. “He had a major impact on cancer therapy”, Alan Rabson, now deputy director of the National Cancer Institute, told The Lancet. “Showing that it wasn't only leukaemias that were curable with chemotherapy was a pivotal step. It opened up the rest of the field”. The endocrinologist joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1941, and became director of the endocrinology section of the NIH's National Cancer Institute in 1946. He remained at the NIH until 1966. During that time, Hertz's work on progesterone analogues led to the development of the birth control pill—Carl Djerassi had sent him norethisterone, an orally effective synthetic hormone similar to progesterone, in 1951. He also researched a derivative of dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), which was eventually used to treat adrenal tumours and vitamin-hormone interactions. Hertz later became scientific director of the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, served as professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, and then research professor, at George Washington University, and worked with Rockefeller University's Population Council. From 1972 until 1973, he served as a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at New York Medical College. In the late 1970s, long before anyone else had raised such concerns, Hertz warned that oestrogenic animal-feed additives could increase the risk of cancer in hormonally sensitive tissues such as the breast. As late as December, 1999, he was presenting research on the possible protective effects of HIV against gestational trophoblastic disease, a topic he turned his attention to later in his career. Hertz was author of more than 150 research papers, starting with a study in the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology in 1932, “Gonadotropin Action of Phyone on Juvenile Female Rabbits, and a book, Choriocarcinoma and Related Gestational Trophoblastic Tumors in Women. Hertz received his bachelor's degree in 1930 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from which he also graduated with a PhD in zoology in 1933 and a medical degree in 1939. In 1940, he received a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In addition to the Lasker, Hertz, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, won many other awards and honours, including the Anne Frankel Rosenthal Memorial Award for Cancer Research of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the 1996 Fred Conrad Koch Award from the Endocrine Society, and the Pioneers in Reproductive Biology award of the American Fertility Society. He is survived by two children, Margaret Brodkin and Jeremy Hertz; two stepchildren, Michael Oberdorfer and Barbara Verdin; 13 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. His first wife, Pearl Fennel, died in 1962. In 1965, he married Dorothy Anne Wright Oberdorfer, a psychiatric social worker who died shortly before Hertz on Oct 17, 2002. Rabson described Hertz as “a wonderful mentor to a large number of young endocrinol-ogists”. He is remembered by many colleagues as an inspirational and pioneering researcher.