Pioneer skin researcher dies

Rochester, Minn. - Richard Winkelmann, M.D., a physician and pioneering dermatology and pathology researcher at the Mayo Clinic, died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Rochester recently. He was 88.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Dr. Winkelmann was a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Marquette University Medical School, Milwaukee, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. He became a resident at the Mayo Clinic in the early 1950s while working on a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. It was at this time that Dr. Winkelmann began focusing on dermatology and combining it with pathology to create a new taxonomy.

Dr. Winkelmann joined the Mayo staff in 1956 upon completing his Ph.D. He chaired department of dermatology from 1970 to 1975. He wrote six books and more than 800 scholarly articles.

In 1994, Dr. Winkelmann retired from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and moved to Arizona, but he didn’t give up research and education, taking up research at Mayo Clinic Scottsdale and teaching at Arizona State University.

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