In Memoriam
Dr. H. Fred Clark
On April 28, 2012, Dr. H Fred Clark passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 75.
Dr. Clark was a scientist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where he co-invented the rotavirus vaccine known as RotaTeq®. The vaccine uses a strain of rotavirus originally isolated from a cow, but modified in Dr. Clark's lab to include individual genes from human rotavirus strains. By modifying the virus in this way, Dr. Clark and colleagues, including Dr. Stanley Plotkin and Dr. Paul Offit, Director, Vaccine Education Center, were able to devise a vaccine that induces protective immunity in babies, preventing the severe diarrhea and vomiting common to this infection.
Children’s Hospital recognized Dr. Clark in 2006 with its highest honor, the Gold Medal, which is awarded to those who have had a profound impact on children’s health in the United States and worldwide.
Dr. Clark also devoted much of his time over the years to providing care and support to Haitians who suffered from poverty and injustice. He was one of those rare individuals whose life-saving scientific discovery and dedication to those less fortunate will live well beyond him.
Read more in his obituary published in The Inquirer»
Dr. Irving Millman
Dr. Millman, a microbiologist who helped develop the hepatitis B vaccine, died on April 17, 2012, in Washington, DC. Working with Dr. Baruch Blumberg at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Dr. Millman helped figure out how to separate the virus from human blood and render it incapable of reproducing when used as a vaccine. Although this process is no longer necessary to produce the hepatitis B vaccine used today (due to improvements in biotechnology which allow the vaccine to be produced without using blood products), it was critical to the development of the first version. Dr. Millman also did work on vaccines for tuberculosis, pertussis and rubella; developed a test for detecting hepatitis B in blood, and did research on a bacteria that causes acne.
Read more in his obituary published in the Washington Post»
Dr. Baruch Blumberg
On April 5, 2011, Dr. Baruch Blumberg passed away in California where he was visiting as the keynote speaker at a NASA meeting. He was 85 years old.
Dr. Blumberg discovered the hepatitis B virus surface antigen which later allowed for development of a vaccine for the virus. His work on hepatitis B virus led him to receive the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1976. His book, Hepatitis B: The Hunt for a Killer Virus, tells the story of his research.
Read more in his obituary published in the Guardian»
Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne
On February 21, 2011, Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne passed away in Connecticutt at the age of 90. Dr. Kilbourne's work was central to the development of the methods used in making today's influenza vaccines. Read more in his obituary published in the LA Times»
Dr. Robert Austrian
Dr. Austrian, the inventor of the adult version of the pneumococcal vaccine (see Feature Article), passed away on March 25, 2007. He would have been 91 on April 12. Until his death, Dr. Austrian worked in his research laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia six days a week studying pneumococcus.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Austrian earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1941. He spent time researching pneumococcus in New York before joining the faculty of Penn in 1962. During the 1970s, Dr. Austrian oversaw trials of his vaccine in South Africa where gold miners were particularly susceptible to pneumococcal infections because of crowded conditions and exposure to different types of the bacteria in their new surroundings. Dr. Austrian was not only an exemplary scientist, but he was also an inspiration to others.
Dr. Austrian will be missed.
Dr. Maurice Hilleman
On April 11, 2005, the world lost one of its premier vaccine researchers when Dr. Maurice Hilleman died at the age of 85. Dr. Hilleman’s may not have been a household name, but his accomplishments touched every household. He is credited with developing vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, meningococcus, pneumococcus, and Japanese encephalitis virus. He was also the first to show that the influenza virus changes each year in such a way that a previous immunization or episode of disease is not enough to protect someone from getting the flu again. Dr. Hilleman’s work saves about eight million lives every year.
When Dr. Hilleman’s daughter Jeryl Lynn had the mumps, he swabbed the back of her throat and weakened the swabbed virus in his lab to create a vaccine for mumps. Today, 1-year-olds still receive the Jeryl Lynn strain of mumps when they are given the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine. According to James Truslow Adams, “The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” Thank you, Dr. Hilleman, for all of your wonderful contributions to the health of children.
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