Max Theiler (30 January 1899 – 11 August 1972) was a South African American virologist and physician. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951.
Life and Career
He was born on 30 January 1899, in South Africa. He attended the Pretoria Boys High School. In 1916, he enrolled at the University of Cape Town Medical School and graduated in 1918.
In 1919, he went to King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School after World War I ended. He got his diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1922. He also became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.
In 1930, he joined the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division; he worked there for over 30 years. During that time, he continued his research into yellow fever and showed that mice could easily contract the disease.
In 1951, he became Director of Laboratories for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Division of Medicine and Public Health, in New York. He also studied encephalitis, dengue fever, and Weil’s disease.
Many of his papers have been published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and the Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. In 1948, he wrote ‘Viral and Rickettsial Infections of Man’ and in 1951 ‘Yellow Fever’.
In 1964, he retired from the Rockefeller Foundation and moved to Yale University to teach epidemiology and microbiology.
Max Theiler died on 11 August 1972 in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Discoveries
His research on a vaccine was facilitated by his discovery that the disease could be transmitted to mice. In 1937, Theiler and his team developed a vaccine against yellow fever by developing the first attenuated strain of the virus. More than 28 million doses of the vaccine were distributed by the Rockefeller Foundation in tropical countries and the United States over the next few years.
His work on viruses continued in 1937 when he found a filterable agent that could cause paralysis in mice. The virus didn’t spread from mice to Rhesus monkeys, and only a few mice developed symptoms. Later the virus became known as Theiler’s Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus (TMEV).
Award
He received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on yellow fever.