Donald Pinkel

Donald Paul Pinkel (September 7, 1926 – March 9, 2022) was an American physician who specialized in pediatric hematology and oncology. Pinkel made contributions to cures for several forms of childhood cancer, including leukemia.

He was the first director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, serving from 1962 to 1973. He also authored or co-authored numerous books, chapters in books, and journal articles.

Early life and career Pinkel was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 7, 1926. His father, Lawrence, worked as a hardware salesman; his mother, Anne (Richardson), was a housewife. Pinkel graduated from Canisius High School in 1944, and enlisted in the US Navy later that year. As part of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, he studied at Cornell University, where he became interested in biology and medicine. He later went back home and graduated from Canisius College in 1947. He then entered medical school at the University at Buffalo, obtaining a medical degree in 1951.

Director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Pinkel met the Lebanese-American entertainer Danny Thomas in 1961. The latter was spearheading the foundation and construction of a children's research hospital, called after St Jude, the patron of the hopeless, to be based in Memphis, Tennessee. Pinkel visited the budding project in 1961, and decided to become a founding member, taking a significant pay reduction to make the move.

Pinkel's team instituted a treatment program aimed at permanent cure of ALL. Called "Total Therapy," it was based on all the available relevant laboratory and clinical research and experience. There were four phases: remission induction, remission consolidation or intensification, specific pre-emptive meningeal treatment and continuation chemotherapy for 3 years. Both radiotherapy and instillation of drug directly into spinal fluid were used for meningeal treatment. Eventually a 50% cure rate was achieved in the 1967–68 study V; this cure rate continues for the children in this study 40 years later. This was the first significant cure rate for generalized cancer and for primarily drug treatment of cancer.

Later career By 1968, it was becoming evident that Pinkel's approach to leukemia treatment was successful. He spent the next several years publishing his findings and refining the procedure, allowing it to be more individualized for each patient. He then resigned as the hospital's director in 1973, and took leadership roles at a series of hospitals or faculties in Milwaukee, then Los Angeles, Houston, and Corpus Christi, Texas. Pinkel retired from the medical profession in 1994. He subsequently taught as an adjunct professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. They eventually divorced. He later married Cathryn Howarth. They remained married until his death. He had nine children, one of whom predeceased him in 2019.