contribution of Maurice Hilleman
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Maurice Hilleman’s Contributions to Science
Vaccines
Maurice Hilleman was the greatest inventor of vaccines the world has ever known. His vaccines were based on the idea used by earlier scientists such as Louis Pasteur, that you could take a virus and weaken it. The virus would then be too weak to cause disease, but would push people’s immune systems into producing natural antibodies. These antibodies would give people natural immunity to the full-strength, disease-causing virus.
Hilleman’s First Vaccine
Hilleman joined the pharmaceutical company E. R. Squibb in New Jersey in 1944. He developed an effective vaccine against Japanese B encephalitis, and worked on the mass production of influenza vaccine.
Preventing an Influenza Pandemic
In 1948, age 28, Hilleman moved to Washington, D.C. to join the Department of Respiratory Diseases at Army Medical Center.
There he became an authority on mutation in influenza viruses, observing two different mechanisms for genetic changes in influenza: drift, a gradual annual change in the virus; and shift, a less frequent but more dramatic change in the virus. If shift happened in a highly virulent variant of the virus, deadly pandemics could result.
In 1957 Hilleman was the first person to identify that a new strain of influenza first seen in Hong Kong had the potential to cause millions of deaths worldwide. He mass-produced a vaccine in just four months and 40 million doses of it were distributed around the USA. The resulting large-scale vaccination program disrupted the spread of the virus and limited the number of American deaths to 69,000 – many fewer than would have taken place in the absence of the vaccine. Hilleman was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work.
Dozens of New Vaccines
In 1957, age 38, Hilleman was recruited by the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. He moved to West Point, Pennsylvania, from where he would lead Merck’s virus and vaccination research programs for the next 45 years.
Vaccines
Maurice Hilleman was the greatest inventor of vaccines the world has ever known. His vaccines were based on the idea used by earlier scientists such as Louis Pasteur, that you could take a virus and weaken it. The virus would then be too weak to cause disease, but would push people’s immune systems into producing natural antibodies. These antibodies would give people natural immunity to the full-strength, disease-causing virus.
Hilleman’s First Vaccine
Hilleman joined the pharmaceutical company E. R. Squibb in New Jersey in 1944. He developed an effective vaccine against Japanese B encephalitis, and worked on the mass production of influenza vaccine.
Preventing an Influenza Pandemic
In 1948, age 28, Hilleman moved to Washington, D.C. to join the Department of Respiratory Diseases at Army Medical Center.
There he became an authority on mutation in influenza viruses, observing two different mechanisms for genetic changes in influenza: drift, a gradual annual change in the virus; and shift, a less frequent but more dramatic change in the virus. If shift happened in a highly virulent variant of the virus, deadly pandemics could result.
In 1957 Hilleman was the first person to identify that a new strain of influenza first seen in Hong Kong had the potential to cause millions of deaths worldwide. He mass-produced a vaccine in just four months and 40 million doses of it were distributed around the USA. The resulting large-scale vaccination program disrupted the spread of the virus and limited the number of American deaths to 69,000 – many fewer than would have taken place in the absence of the vaccine. Hilleman was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work.
Dozens of New Vaccines
In 1957, age 38, Hilleman was recruited by the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. He moved to West Point, Pennsylvania, from where he would lead Merck’s virus and vaccination research programs for the next 45 years.
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