The yellow fever vaccine: a history.
After failed attempts at producing bacteria-based vaccines, the discovery of a viral agent causing yellow fever and its isolation in monkeys opened new avenues of research. Subsequent advances were the attenuation of the virus in mice and later in tissue culture; the creation of the seed lot system to avoid spontaneous mutations; the ability to produce the vaccine on a large scale in eggs; and the removal of dangerous contaminants. An important person in the story is Max Theiler, who was Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale from 1964-67, and whose work on virus attenuation created the modern vaccine and earned him the Nobel Prize.
Frierson
J Gordon
JG
University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94302, USA. jgfr@earthlink.net
D000818:Animals; D000882:Haplorhini; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D022341:Yellow Fever Vaccine / Q000266:history*
D022341:Yellow Fever Vaccine