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Newswise Stanley G. Schultz, M.D., a world-renowned investigator, educator and administrator at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, died Thursday, Oct. 23. He was 82 years old.

Schultz was a key contributor to the discovery, introduction and widespread use of oral rehydration therapy. This treatment for severe fluid loss caused by diarrheal diseases is estimated to have saved more than 40 million lives in the past 35 years.

Beloved as a teacher, mentor and a friend, he was also internationally known as a brilliant scientist whose work saved many lives, said Giuseppe Colasurdo, M.D., president of UTHealth. He was the heart of the UTHealth Medical School while he was here and long after he had ceased to have an active role. He will be deeply missed.

A native of New York City, Schultz graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1949, received his baccalaureate, summa cum laude, from Columbia University in 1952 and received his medical degree from New York University College of Medicine. He did postgraduate training at NYU-Bellevue Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

While at Harvard Medical School, Schultz took a two-year leave of absence for military service. In 1962, he was inducted into the U.S. Air Force as a captain in the medical corps and was stationed at the U.S. Air Force Aerospace School of Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. Schultz taught radiation biology, monitored research contracts and conducted research on the biological effects of radiation. This sparked his lifelong interest in intestinal absorption.

Schultz returned to Harvard Medical School in 1964. Three years later, he joined the Department of Physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as an associate professor and was promoted to the rank of professor in 1970. After developing a highly productive research program at Pittsburgh, which included a sabbatical at the University of Cambridge in England, he joined the UTHealth Medical School as professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology in 1979.

John H. Jack Byrne, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the UTHealth Medical School, first met Schultz in the early 1970s when they worked at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Schultz later recruited Byrne to join him at UTHealth.

Dr. Schultz was an outstanding scientist who made fundamental discoveries about the ways in which molecules cross membranes, said Byrne, noting that this information furthered the understanding of conditions such as cystic fibrosis.

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Stanley G. Schultz, Whose Rehydration Research Helped Save Millions, Has Died