Thomas Huckle Weller | |
|---|---|
 Nobel Prize portrait, 1954 | |
| Born | (1915-06-15)June 15, 1915 |
| Died | August 23, 2008(2008-08-23) (aged 93) |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan,Harvard Medical School |
| Known for | poliomyelitis viruses |
| Awards | E. Mead Johnson Award(1953) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine(1954) Walter Reed Medal(1996) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | virology |
Thomas Huckle Weller (June 15, 1915 – August 23, 2008) was an Americanvirologist. He,John Franklin Enders andFrederick Chapman Robbins were awarded aNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954 for showing how to cultivatepoliomyelitis viruses in a test tube, using a combination of human embryonic skin and muscle tissue.[1]
Weller was born and grew up inAnn Arbor,Michigan, where he graduated fromAnn Arbor High School. He then went to theUniversity of Michigan, where his fatherCarl Vernon Weller was a professor in the Department of Pathology. At Michigan, he studied medical zoology and received a B.S. and an M.S., with his masters thesis on fish parasites.
In 1936, Weller enteredHarvard Medical School, and in 1939 began working under John Franklin Enders, with whom he would later (along with Frederick Chapman Robbins) share the Nobel Prize. It was Enders who got Weller involved in researching viruses and tissue-culture techniques for determining infectious disease causes. Weller received his MD in 1940, and went to work at Children's Hospital inBoston.
In 1942, during World War II, he entered the Army Medical Corps and was stationed at theAntilles Medical Laboratory inPuerto Rico, earning the rank of Major and heading the facility's Departments of Bacteriology, Virology and Parasitology. After the War, he returned to Children's Hospital in Boston, and it was there in 1947, that he rejoined Enders in the newly created Research Division of Infectious Diseases. After several leading positions, in July 1954, he was appointed head of the Tropical Public Health Department at theHarvard School of Public Health. Weller also served from 1953 to 1959 as director of the Commission on Parasitic Diseases of the AmericanArmed Forces Epidemiological Board.
In addition to his work on polio, Weller also contributed to treatingschistosomiasis, andCoxsackie viruses. He was also the first to isolate the virus responsible forchickenpox.
In 1954, Weller was awarded theGeorge Ledlie prize in recognition of his research onrubella,polio andcytomegalovirus(CMV) viruses.
He was awarded theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinein 1954 for his research onpolio.
In 1996 he was awarded theWalter Reed Medal from theAmerican Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.[2]
In 1945, Weller married Kathleen Fahey, who died in 2011 aged 95. They had two sons and two daughters.
including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1954The Cultivation of the Poliomyelitis Viruses in Tissue Culture
