Hertz is called the father of the field of theranostics, combining diagnostic imaging with therapy in a single or paired chemical substance(s).

Saul Hertz attended public school and went on to graduate from the University of Michigan with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1924.

[6] On November 12, 1936, Karl Compton, then president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave a presentation, entitled "What Physics Can Do For Biology and Medicine" in Harvard Medical School's Vanderbilt Hall.

[10] The Harvard Milton Fund sponsored the first preclinical studies of isotope iodine-128 on thyroid function in 48 rabbits, which Roberts produced without a cyclotron.

Roberts produced the iodine-128 by means of neutron bombardment, building on previous studies by physicist Enrico Fermi.

[11] Roberts also devised a Geiger-Müller detector for quantifying the amount of the radioisotope of iodine present in the biological specimens produced in the experiment.

[15] The original manuscript describing their rabbit study findings had Hertz and Roberts as the coauthors as they had done the work and written the paper.

[citation needed] At the time of the 1937 rabbit studies, Hertz predicted the therapeutic use of radioactive iodine for treating thyroid carcinoma in a medical journal.

[citation needed] In 1938, Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood had artificially prepared I-131 using the University of California Berkeley's cyclotron.

The building of the cyclotron at MIT for producing suitable isotopes was funded for $30,000 by the Mary Markle Foundation of New York City in 1938.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published “Radioactive Iodine in the Study of Thyroid Physiology" with Hertz as lead author in its May 1946 issue.

After his return from military duty, Hertz learned that MGH's Earl Chapman (who had taken over Hertz's clinical trials) and MIT's Robley Evans, had submitted a scientific publication to the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) claiming priority for the development of the use of RAI to treat Graves' Disease.

Morris Fishbein, editor of JAMA, requested that Hertz and Roberts, submit their seventh article on the subject, describing their successful use of RAI in the first clinical trials.

[25] Hertz established the Radioactive Isotope Research Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, in September 1946, with Samuel Seidlin of New York City as the associate director.

Its purpose was to develop the applications of nuclear fission products to the treatment of thyroid cancer, goiter, and other malignant growths.

[11] In 1949, Hertz established the first nuclear medicine department at the Massachusetts Women's Hospital where he expanded his research to use radionuclides to diagnose and treat other forms of cancer.

His research continued with his appointments as instructor at Harvard Medical School from 1946 to 1950 and as an attachment to the Nuclear Physics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1939 to 1950.

[5] Barbara Bush, who was successfully treated with radioiodine, wrote to Vitta Hertz, his widow, “It is comforting to know that so many people are well because of the scientific expertise of people like Dr. Hertz.” [29] In the early 21st century, there is a significant rise in the use of radioisotopes to diagnose and treat cancer, in a field of nuclear medicine referred to as theranostics.

Barbara Hertz also co-authored with Kristin Schuller a 2010 publication in the journal Endocrine Practice on her father's major contributions to human health.

ACS Landmark commemorates this seminal achievement in the history of chemical sciences and provides a record of Dr. Hertz's contributions to chemistry and society that have profoundly transformed our lives.