Nicholas James Gonzalez, MD, was born in Queens, New York on December 28, 1947 and died at his New York City home on July 21, 2015.

He graduated from Brown University, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, with a degree in English Literature. He subsequently worked as a journalist, first at Time, Inc., before pursuing premedical studies at Columbia. He then received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1983. During a post graduate immunology fellowship under Robert A. Good, MD, PhD, considered the father of immunology, he completed a research study evaluating an aggressive nutritional therapy in the treatment of advanced cancer.

Gonzalez had been in private practice in New York City since 1987. He treated patients diagnosed with cancer and other serious degenerative illnesses with The Gonzalez Protocol®. His nutritional research received substantial financial support from Procter & Gamble and Nestle. Results from a pilot study published in 1999 described the most positive data in the medical literature for pancreatic cancer.

Gonzalez wrote several books documenting his scientific theories and their history as well as his cancer research and patient case histories. His first book, "The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer," discusses the work of John Beard, who first suggested 100 years ago that pancreatic enzymes have an anti-cancer effect. His second book, "One Man Alone," presents the results of Gonzalez’s five-year investigation of the alternative cancer practitioner William Donald Kelley completed under the direction of Robert Good. His third book, "What Went Wrong: The Truth Behind the Clinical Trial of the Enzyme Treatment of Cancer" documents Gonzalez’s battle to have The Gonzalez Protocol® properly tested in an NCI clinical study.

He is the recipient of several awards including:

• The Ernst L. Wynder Award – in recognition of his pioneering contributions to the scientific study of alternative therapies for cancer from The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, 2000
• Distinguished Pioneer in Alternative Medicine Award, Foundation for Advancement of Innovative Medicine, 2000
• Integrity in Science Award, Weston A. Price Foundation, 2010
• Humanitarian Award, Cancer Control Society, 2010
• Lifetime Achievement Award, The Truth About Cancer, 2015
• Doctors Who Rock Award, 2017