John Franklin Enders | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | |
Died | September 8, 1985 | (aged 88)
Nationality | American |
Education | St. Paul's School |
Alma mater | Yale University Harvard University |
Known for | culturing poliovirus, isolating measlesvirus, developing measles vaccine |
Awards | Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1954) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1954) Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh (1960) |
John Franklin Enders (February 10, 1897 – September 8, 1985) was an American biomedical scientist and Nobel Laureate. Enders has been called "The Father of Modern Vaccines."[1][2]
Life and education
Enders was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. His father, John Ostrom Enders, was CEO of the Hartford National Bank and left him a fortune of $19 million upon his death. He attended the Noah Webster School in Hartford, and St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. After attending Yale University a short time, he joined the United States Army Air Corps in 1918 as a flight instructor and a lieutenant.
After returning from World War I, he graduated from Yale, where he was a member of Scroll and Key as well as Delta Kappa Epsilon. He went into real estate in 1922, and tried several careers before choosing the biomedical field with a focus on infectious diseases, gaining a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1930. He later joined the faculty at Children's Hospital Boston.[3]
Enders died in 1985 in Waterford, Connecticut, aged 88, holding honorary doctoral degrees from 13 universities.[4] His wife died in 2000.
Biomedical career
In 1949, Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Chapman Robbins reported successful in vitro culture of an animal virus—poliovirus.[5] The three received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of the ability of polioviruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue".[verify]
Meanwhile, Jonas Salk applied the Enders-Weller-Robbins technique to produce large quantities of poliovirus, and then developed a polio vaccine in 1952. Upon the 1954 polio vaccine field trial, whose success Salk announced on the radio,[6] Salk became a public hero but failed to credit the many other researchers that his effort rode upon, and was somewhat shunned by America's scientific establishment.[7]
In 1954, Enders and Peebles isolated measlesvirus from an 11-year-old boy, David Edmonston.[8] Disappointed by polio vaccine's development and involvement in some cases of polio and death—what Enders attributed to Salk's technique—Enders began development of measles vaccine.[8] In October 1960, an Enders team began trials on 1,500 mentally retarded children in New York City and on 4,000 children in Nigeria.[9]
On September 17, 1961, The New York Times announced the measles vaccine effective.[9] Refusing credit for only himself, Enders stressed the collaborative nature of the effort.[9] In 1963, Pfizer introduced a deactivated measles vaccine, and Merck & Co introduced an attenuated measles vaccine.
Honors
- 1946: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[10]
- 1954: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (together with Frederick Chapman Robbins and Thomas Huckle Weller)[11][12]
- 1955: Kyle Award from the U.S. Public Health Service[13]
- 1958: inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame
- 1960: Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh
- 1962: Robert Koch Prize
- 1963: Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 1963: Science Achievement Award from the American Medical Association
- 1967: Foreign Member, The Royal Society[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b Tyrrell, D. A. J. (1987). "John Franklin Enders. 10 February 1897-8 September 1985". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 33: 212–226. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1987.0008. JSTOR 769951. PMID 11621434.
- ^ Katz SL (2009). "John F. Enders and measles virus vaccine—a reminiscence". Measles. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. 329. pp. 3–11. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-70523-9_1. ISBN 978-3-540-70522-2. PMID 19198559.
- ^ "John F. Enders - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media. 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
- ^ Thomas H Weller & Frederick C Robb, A Biographical Memoir: John Franklin Enders (1897–1985), (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1991), p 62.
- ^ Enders JF, Weller TH, Robbins FC (1949). "Cultivation of the Lansing strain of poliomyelitis virus in cultures of various human embryonic tissues". Science. 109 (2822): 85–87. Bibcode:1949Sci...109...85E. doi:10.1126/science.109.2822.85. PMID 17794160.
- ^ "Salk announces polio vaccine" Archived 2010-02-11 at the Wayback Machine. History.com. 2010. Retrieved 31 Jan 2010.
- ^ Balik R, "On this day: Polio vaccine declared safe", FindingDulcinea, 12 Apr 2011.
- ^ a b Baker JP (2011). "The first measles vaccine". Pediatrics. 128 (3): 435–7. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-1430. PMID 21873696.
- ^ a b c Bakalar N, "First mention: Measles vaccine, 1960", New York Times, 5 Oct 2010, p D2.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 15 Apr 2011.
- ^ "How a CT man who majored in English at Yale became the 'Father of Modern Vaccines'". CTInsider.com. 2020-09-08. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
- ^ October 2019, Live Science Staff 07. "Nobel Prize in Medicine: 1901-Present". livescience.com. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
- ^ "Enders, John F. (1897-1985) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
- Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2007). Encyclopedia of World Scientists. New York: Facts on File.
- Tyrrell, D. A. J. (1987). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society Vol. 33. The Royal Society.
External links
- John F. Enders on Nobelprize.org
including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1954 The Cultivation of the Poliomyelitis Viruses in Tissue Culture
- John Franklin Enders Papers (MS 1478). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.