William Henry Beierwaltes
William Henry Beierwaltes (circa 1917 – August 14, 2005) was an American doctor who helped start the field of nuclear medicine. He built on the work of Saul Hertz and developed new uses for radioactive iodine to diagnose and treat thyroid problems, including thyroid cancer. He also helped train doctors in nuclear medicine and worked on using radiolabeled antibodies to detect cancer.
Beierwaltes grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He studied at the University of Michigan, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1938 and a medical degree in 1941. He finished his endocrinology residency in 1945. His interest in thyroid cancer began after he performed an autopsy during medical school. He later did an internship and residency at Cleveland City Hospital, where he studied an antithyroid drug for hyperthyroidism.
In 1945 he joined the University of Michigan Medical School faculty and began working in nuclear medicine. He was one of five doctors at the first course teaching how to use radioactive iodine, offered by the Atomic Energy Commission in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He worked to find ways to diagnose and treat cancer with radioisotopes and set up a clinic using radioactive iodine to help with thyroid diseases.
In 1952 he became head of the Clinical Radioisotope Service at Michigan. He wrote a book, Clinical Use of Radioisotopes (1957), one of the early texts in the field. In the early 1960s he became chief of the Nuclear Medicine Division at Michigan and helped create one of the first nuclear medicine fellowship programs in the United States.
In 1950 he reported a study where X-ray treatment of the pituitary gland helped prevent blindness in eight of eleven patients with exophthalmos (thyroid-related eye disease). The treatment reduced swelling, and over three years patients gained weight and eye swelling improved.
Beierwaltes retired from the University of Michigan at age 70 and moved to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, continuing work at St. John Hospital and Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He fully retired from clinical work on August 31, 1994.
He helped develop the idea of combining radioactive iodine with Iobenguane (MIBG) to image adrenal tissue and co-held a patent for Iobenguane in the 1970s. He received the American Medical Association’s Scientific Achievement Award for his work as a clinician, teacher, and investigator.
Beierwaltes died on August 14, 2005, in Petoskey, Michigan, at about age 88.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:58 (CET).