Donald Lee Morton (September 12, 1934 – January 10, 2014) was an American surgical oncologist who was best known for developing sentinel lymph node evaluation, a procedure that, by some estimates, saves the U.S. healthcare system nearly $4 billion annually in the treatment of melanoma and breast cancer.
He published in excess of 600 articles in peer reviewed journals and received funding for his research from the National Institutes of Health for 35 years.
[2] Dr. Morton trained more than 100 postdoctoral fellows, most of whom hold academic positions in medical schools or cancer institutes.
Due to his economically disadvantaged status, he was able to attend Berea College in Kentucky on a full scholarship.
Morton spent the better part of four decades trying to develop a therapeutic vaccine for melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer.