In the 1960s Vincent P. Dole pioneered human studies on the biological basis of heroin addiction. He discovered that methadone can quell an addict's craving and that maintenance doses can return narcotics users to productive lives. Dole's innovative approach to studying addiction as a medical problem was conducted at the Rockefeller University Hospital in New York, a unique clinical research center where a scientific approach to this problem was possible. Dole has spent fifty years in biomedical research at Rockefeller and opened several areas of scientific medicine. His early contributions to understanding metabolic disturbances in patients with kidney disease, high blood pressure, and obesity provided the underpinnings of his seminal work in the biology and pharmacology of addiction.

Vincent Paul Dole, Jr., born in Chicago, Illinois on May 8, 1913, was named after his father, an importer of olive oil and olives. His mother, Anne Dowling, once taught school in...