Beatrice Mintz (January 24, 1921 – January 3, 2022) was an American
embryologist who contributed to the understanding of
genetic modification
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...
,
cellular differentiation, and cancer, particularly
melanoma.
[Martha J. Bailey, ''American women in science: a biographical dictionary, Vol. 1'', ABC-CLIO, 1994, p. 252, ] Mintz was a pioneer of genetic engineering techniques and was among the first scientists to generate both chimeric and transgenic
A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the ...
mammals.
In 1996, she shared the inaugural March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology
The March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology is awarded once a year by the March of Dimes. It carries a $250,000 award "to an investigator whose research brings us closer to the day when all babies will be born healthy." It also includes a ...
with Ralph L. Brinster for their work in developing transgenic mice.[ Much of her career was spent at ]Fox Chase Cancer Center
Fox Chase Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center research facility and hospital located in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The main facilities of the center are loca ...
in Philadelphia where, in 2002, she was appointed to the Jack Schultz Chair in Basic Science.[Alumni Fellows, 2002 Recipients]
, The University of Iowa Mintz was a member of both the United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences ( it, Pontificia accademia delle scienze, la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a Academy of sciences, scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the ...
.
Early life and education
Beatrice Mintz was born in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
on January 24, 1921,[''Volume 11 of Encyclopedia of World Biography'', Gale Research, 1998, p. 49, ] to Samuel and Janie Stein Mintz, a Jewish couple from Mikulintsy, then in Austrian Galicia, now in Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
. She was graduated magna cum laude from Hunter College in 1941 [ and then took graduate studies at ]New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
for a year. Because of anti-Semitic quotas for admission to colleges on the east coast, she attended the University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...
, where she received a master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. in 1944 and her Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in 1946,[ studying amphibians under Emil Witschi.][
]
Research
After graduation, Mintz accepted a professorship in biological science at the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
(1946–60;[ interrupted by studies abroad: Mintz was awarded a Fulbright research fellowship at the universities of Paris and Strasbourg in 1951). In 1960 she moved to the Institute for Cancer Research of the Lankenau Hospital Research Institute, which became the ]Fox Chase Cancer Center
Fox Chase Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center research facility and hospital located in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The main facilities of the center are loca ...
in 1974, where she remained on faculty. In the mid 1950s, Mintz switched her research focus from amphibians to mammals and became a pioneer in mammalian transgenesis
Gene delivery is the process of introducing foreign genetic material, such as DNA or RNA, into host cells. Gene delivery must reach the genome of the host cell to induce gene expression. Successful gene delivery requires the foreign gene deli ...
.[ In 1965, she became an adjunct professor at the ]University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
.[
Mintz and Andrzej K. Tarkowski independently made the first mouse embryonic chimeras in the 1960s by aggregating two embryos at the eight-cell stage. The resultant mice developed normally and their tissues were a mixture of cells derived from the two donor embryos. Mintz went on to create viable chimeric embryos containing ]blastomere
In biology, a blastomere is a type of cell produced by cell division (cleavage) of the zygote after fertilization; blastomeres are an essential part of blastula formation, and blastocyst formation in mammals.
Human blastomere characteristics
In ...
s from up to fifteen different laboratory mice.[ She developed a technique that involved mixing cells from a black mouse strain into the blastocysts of white or brown mice '']in vitro
''In vitro'' (meaning in glass, or ''in the glass'') studies are performed with microorganisms, cells, or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called " test-tube experiments", these studies in biology ...
''. She then surgically transferred these early embryos into surrogate mothers and, after birth, traced the tissue contribution of each cell type made by studying the coat color. Her cell fusion technique was successful where others had failed due to the choice to remove the zona pellucida
The zona pellucida (plural zonae pellucidae, also egg coat or pellucid zone) is a specialized extracellular matrix that surrounds the plasma membrane of mammalian oocytes. It is a vital constitutive part of the oocyte. The zona pellucida first ap ...
with pronase Pronase is a commercially available mixture of proteases isolated from the extracellular fluid of ''Streptomyces griseus''. Activity extends to both denatured and native proteins leading to complete or nearly complete digestion into individual amino ...
treatment, rather than physically. Since 1967 Mintz has created more than 25,000 offspring using this technique.[
Mintz demonstrated that ]teratocarcinoma
Germ cell tumor (GCT) is a neoplasm derived from germ cells. Germ-cell tumors can be cancerous or benign. Germ cells normally occur inside the gonads (ovary and testis). GCTs that originate outside the gonads may be birth defects resulting from er ...
tumor cells could be reprogrammed to contribute to a healthy mouse when combined with normal mouse embryo cells through eight years of experiments using some of the first pluripotent stem cell Pluripotency: These are the cells that can generate into any of the three Germ layers which imply Endodermal, Mesodermal, and Ectodermal cells except tissues like the placenta.
According to Latin terms, Pluripotentia means the ability for many thin ...
cultures ever made.[
Mintz and ]Rudolf Jaenisch
Rudolf Jaenisch (born April 22, 1942) is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisch ...
published a technological breakthrough in 1974. Jaenisch was a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
at the time. He was interested in why only certain types of cancer occurred when he injected adult mice with viruses. Inspired by Mintz's earlier work, he wanted to know whether injecting virus into early-stage embryos would result in the DNA being incorporated, and what types of cancer would occur. Mintz agreed to work with Jaenisch, who joined her lab as a visiting fellow for nine months. They showed that DNA from a virus, SV40
SV40 is an abbreviation for simian vacuolating virus 40 or simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that has the potential to cause tumors in animals, but most often ...
, could be integrated into the DNA of developing mice and persist into adulthood without apparent tumor formation.
Although only somatic cells were affected, meaning the DNA would not be passed on to future generations, these were the first mice ever made with foreign DNA and this experiment proved healthy genetically modified mammals could be created by viral infection. Using these techniques Mintz was able to establish the genetic basis of certain kinds of cancer and, in 1993, she produced the first mouse model
A model organism (often shortened to model) is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the working ...
of human malignant melanoma
Melanoma, also redundantly known as malignant melanoma, is a type of skin cancer that develops from the pigment-producing cells known as melanocytes. Melanomas typically occur in the skin, but may rarely occur in the mouth, intestines, or eye ...
.[
]
Honors
Mintz received numerous awards and honors including the first Genetics Society of America Medal (1981), and the first March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology
The March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology is awarded once a year by the March of Dimes. It carries a $250,000 award "to an investigator whose research brings us closer to the day when all babies will be born healthy." It also includes a ...
shared with Ralph L. Brinster (1996).[ She was elected a fellow of the ]American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(1982), American Association for the Advancement of Science (1973), the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
(1982), and won an honorary fellow of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society since 1980. She won the Papanicolaou Award for Scientific Achievement (1979), the Amory Prize (1988), the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine
The Ernst Jung Prize is a prize awarded annually for excellence in biomedical sciences. The Ernst Jung Foundation, funded by Hamburg merchant Ernst Jung in 1967, has awarded the Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine, now €300,000, since 1976, and the lif ...
(1990), the John Scott Medal
John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way. "...the John Scott Medal Fund, establish ...
(1994), the American Cancer Society National Medal of Honor for Basic Research (1997), a citation for Outstanding Woman in Science (1993) from the New York Academy of Sciences, and, in 2007, was a recipient of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize
The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize is an award for women scientists in biology given annually by the Rockefeller University.
The Prize was founded by Nobel laureate Paul Greengard and his wife Ursula von Rydingsvard in honor of Greengard's moth ...
.
On March 8, 2011, the U.S. National Foundation for Cancer Research awarded Beatrice Mintz its Sixth Annual Szent-Gyorgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research.
In 2012, Mintz was awarded the Ninth Annual AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research.
She received honorary doctorate degrees from five universities. She delivered dozens of special lectures, including the Ninetieth Anniversary Lecture at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (1978) and the first Frontiers in Biomedical Sciences Lecture at the New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences (originally the Lyceum of Natural History) was founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is the fourth oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization wi ...
(1980). She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a senior member of the Institute for Cancer Research, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and served on the editorial boards of various scientific journals.
Personal life and death
Mintz died on January 3, 2022 from heart failure, three weeks before her 101st birthday. She had dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
in her later years.
References
External links
Faculty profile
at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Query Theory: A tribute to Beatrice Mintz, PhD, part of the Cancer History Project
from ''The Cancer Letter''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mintz, Beatrice
1921 births
2022 deaths
American embryologists
American women biologists
Jewish American scientists
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Scientists from New York City
Hunter College alumni
New York University alumni
University of Iowa alumni
University of Chicago faculty
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
American centenarians
Women centenarians
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Fox Chase Cancer Center people