Vincent Dole

Vincent Dole was an American doctor, who, along with his wife, Marie Nyswander, developed the use of methadone to treat heroin addiction. Dole and Nyswander, in establishing methadone maintenance treatment (MMT), improved treatment options in addiction medicine which for a century had been based on the conventional view that narcotic addiction was the result of an intractable moral defect. His work resulted in the partial re-legalization of opioid maintenance in the United States. For this contribution he was a recipient of the 1970 Canada Gairdner International Award, and the 1988 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.