Maurice Hilleman
2005; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 11; Issue: S4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/nm1223
ISSN1546-170X
Autores ResumoOn 26 January, some of the world's most famous and accomplished biomedical researchers gathered in Philadelphia to honor Maurice Hilleman.That evening, Hilleman thanked the group, saying, "there's no greater tribute that anyone can pay to a scientist than to give approval to a peer.All of you I think of as peers in the world of science."Addressed to a group of more than a hundred people, the statement was clearly absurd.By any objective measure, a gathering of Maurice Hilleman's scientific peers would not fill a telephone booth.Hilleman has produced a mind-boggling number of fundamental breakthroughs.He is the inventor of more than 40 vaccines, including those that prevent measles, mumps, rubella, Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and chickenpox.Epidemiologists often refer to the first few decades after World War II as the golden age of vaccinology.It might be more accurate to call it the Hilleman period.According to one estimate, his vaccines save nearly 8 million lives a year.Hilleman also discovered SV40 and the adenoviruses, was the first to purify interferon, and the first to demonstrate that its expression is induced by double-stranded RNA-discoveries that launched several branches of molecular biology and immunology and jump-started the quest for antiviral medications.Astonishingly, despite transforming the nature of public health, he seems to be fading into obscurity."Very few people, even in the scientific community, are even remotely aware of the scope of what Maurice has contributed," Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted at the symposium."I recently asked my post-docs whether they knew who had developed the measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccines.They had no idea," Fauci said."When I told them that it was Maurice Hilleman, they said, 'Oh, you mean that grumpy guy who comes to all of the AIDS meetings?'"Indeed, Hilleman's reputation as a prickly character often overshadows his accomplishments.Even at 86, he is a tall, confident man with a firm handshake who speaks softly but bluntly-and often profanely.Relating the story of how he met his wife, Lorraine, for example, he described his dating experiences in 1962: "I had a couple of dates.Christ.Finding women is sort of like by Brownian action.You don't know whether they're drunkards, or they'll spend all your money, or whether they have venereal diseases."Giving up on the dating scene, he instead decided to hunt for a wife among the job applicant pool at Merck and Company in West Point, Pennsylvania, where he worked.He enlisted the aid of his administrative assistant."I said, 'Look, Ken, I want you to go through all these [job] applications and pick out what looks good to you, then send them up to me, and we'll do that once a week until we find one,'" Hilleman recalls.On hearing this, a young woman in the audience at the symposium remarked to her companion, "You couldn't get away with that today."The same could be said about much of Hilleman's career."Unlike other people in research, Maurice did every aspect of research and development," notes P. Roy Vagelos, former chairman and chief executive officer of Merck.Hilleman characterized antigens and isolated them, then did the basic research, the process research and the clinical research, Vagelos says.Following clinical trials, Hilleman would also haunt the
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