Beatrice Mintz
Beatrice Mintz (January 24, 1921 – January 3, 2022) was an American embryologist, developmental geneticist, and pioneer of genetic engineering. She was elected in 1973 a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and shared in 1996 the inaugural March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology with Ralph L. Brinster. She was twice nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Quotes
[edit]- In higher organisms, the cells of an individual become greatly diversified despite their identity of genotype. How such diversification is achieved and how supra-cellular organization then comes about have remained largely obscure. A new way of getting at theses questions was formulated in this laboratory; its purpose was to subject the pivotal genotype-phenotype relationship to experimental manipulation. The intact organism was taken to be the necessary framework for such an experimental study of gene expression, and the mouse, with its wide variety of available genetic markers, was easily the most promising vertebrate species. The plan was to make artificial mice: within each, cells with different, rather than identical, genotypes would be included. ...
Certain kinds of mosaicism had previously been extensively employed in studies with Drosophilia. ... The first indication, in a mammal, of an admixture of genotypes came with Owen's discovery of erythrocyte mosaicism in fraternal cattle co-twins. ...- (July 15, 1967) "Gene control of mammalian pigmentary differentiation. I. Clonal origin of melanocytes". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 58 (1): 344–351. DOI:10.1073/pnas.58.1.344.
- Tumors owe their existence to a population of persistently proliferating stem cells which probably originate from the normal generative cells of that tissue ... Normal stem cells ordinarily tend to give rise to non-dividing terminally differentiated cellular progeny; malignant stem cells, on the other hand, suffer an impairment of differentiation. Early in embryonic life, stem cells are developmentally versatile; the earliest ones, e.g., blastomeres in the mouse, are totipotent, or individually capable of forming an entire organism.
Teratocarcinomas are exceptional tumors in that they contain a multiplicity of tissues, a characteristic implying that their stem cells arise from cells more developmentally primitive than is the case in other malignancies.- (April 1979) "Teratocarcinoma cells as vehicles for introducing mutant genes into mice". Differentiation 13 (1): 25–27.
Quotes about Beatrice Mintz
[edit]- She made foundational discoveries and revolutionized many tools and techniques of molecular biology that paved the way for tremendous progress in our understanding of cancer.
- Margaret Foti, as quoted by Katharine Q. Seelye in: (January 13, 2022) "Beatrice Mintz, Groundbreaking Cancer Researcher, Dies at 100". New York Times: p. 19, Section A.
- Beatrice Mintz, known as “Bea” to her friends, was a developmental geneticist. ... Her pioneering work had a major impact on many different areas of science. She began her career addressing one of the most complex and fascinating questions of development: how the many different and diverse tissues in an organism are initiated and develop from a single fertilized egg. In the early 1960s Bea—at about the same time as Andrzej Tarkowski in Poland and Ralph Brinster in Philadelphia—generated the first chimeric mice by combining early, genetically distinct, mouse embryos. She had contemplated this experiment for many years at the University of Chicago and began to work seriously on it after moving to Fox Chase (discussing the project with her colleagues) … And indeed, this manipulation of embryos was a breakthrough to a new era of experimental work in mammalian development. (Bea did not like the designation “chimera” because of its association with “monsters” in Greek mythology; she described these mice as “allophenic.”)
- Rudolf Jaenisch, (March 14, 2022) "Beatrice Mintz, a giant in mammalian development" 119 (12): e2201631119. DOI:10.1073/pnas.2201631119.
External links
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Media related to Beatrice Mintz on Wikimedia Commons- In Memoriam: Beatrice Mintz (1/24/1921 - 01/03/2022). American Association for Cancer Research.
Categories:
- 1921 births
- 2022 deaths
- Academics from the United States
- Centenarians
- Geneticists
- Jews from the United States
- Members of the American Philosophical Society
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- New York University alumni
- Scientists from New York City
- University of Chicago faculty
- University of Pennsylvania faculty
- Women born in the 1920s
- Women scientists from the United States