| Intro | South African-American virologist and doctor |
| Was |
Physician Scientist |
| From |
South Africa United States of America |
| Type |
Healthcare Science |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 30 January 1899, Pretoria |
| Death |
11 August 1972, New Haven (aged 73 years) |
Max Theiler (30 January 1899 – 11 August 1972) was a South African-American virologist and doctor. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever in 1937, becoming the first African-born Nobel laureate.
Born in Pretoria, Theiler was educated in South Africa through completion of his degree in medical school. He went to London for post-graduate work at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, King’s College London and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, earning a 1922 diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene. That year he moved to the United States to do research at the Harvard University School of Tropical Medicine. He lived and worked in that nation the rest of his life. In 1930 he moved to the Rockefeller Institute in New York, becoming director of the Virus Laboratory.
Early life and education
Theiler was born in Pretoria, then the capital of the South African Republic (now South Africa); his father Arnold Theiler was a veterinary bacteriologist. He attended Pretoria Boys High School, Rhodes University College, and University of Cape Town Medical School, graduating in 1918. He left South Africa for London, England to study at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, King’s College London, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1922 he was awarded a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene; he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Career development
Theiler wanted to pursue a career in research, so in 1922 he took a position at the Harvard University School of Tropical Medicine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. He spent several years investigating amoebic dysentery and trying to develop a vaccine for rat-bite fever.
After becoming assistant to Andrew Sellards, he started working on yellow fever. In 1926 they disproved Hideyo Noguchi’s hypothesis that yellow fever was caused by the bacterium Leptospira icteroides. In 1928, the year after the disease was identified conclusively as a virus, they showed that the African and South American viruses are immunologically identical. (This followed Adrian Stokes’ inducing yellow fever in Rhesus monkeys from India). In the course of this research, Theiler contracted yellow fever but survived and developed immunity.
In 1930 Theiler moved to the Rockefeller Institute in New York, where he later became director of the Virus Laboratory. He was professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale University from 1964 to 1967.
Work on yellow fever
After passing the yellow fever virus through laboratory mice, Theiler found that the weakened virus conferred immunity on Rhesus monkeys. The stage was set for Theiler to develop a vaccine against the disease. Theiler first devised a test for the efficacy of experimental vaccines. In his test, sera from vaccinated human subjects was injected into mice to see if it protected the mice against Yellow Fever virus. This “mouse protection test,” was used with variations as a measure of immunity until after World War II. Subculturing the particularly virulent Asibi strain from West Africa in chicken embryos, a technique pioneered by Ernest Goodpasture, the Rockefeller team sought to obtain an attenuated strain of the virus that would not kill mice when injected into their brains. It took until 1937, and more than one hundred subcultures in chicken embryos, for Theiler and his colleague Hugh Smith to obtain an attenuated strain, which they named “17D”. Animal tests showed the attenuated 17D mutant was safe and immunizing. Theiler’s team rapidly completed the development of a 17D vaccine, and the Rockefeller Foundation began human trials in South America. Between 1940 and 1947, the Rockefeller Foundation produced more than 28 million doses of the vaccine and finally ended yellow fever as a major disease.
For this work Theiler received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Theiler also was awarded the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s Chalmers Medal in 1939, Harvard University’s Flattery Medal in 1945, and the American Public Health Association’s Lasker Award in 1949.
Theiler’s Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus (TMEV)
In 1937, Max Theiler discovered a filterable agent that was a known cause for paralysis in mice. He found the virus was not transmittable to Rhesus monkeys, and that only some mice developed symptoms. The virus is now referred to as Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus. The virus has been well characterized, and now serves as a standard model for studying multiple sclerosis.
Private life
He married Lillian Graham in 1928, and they had one daughter. He died in New Haven, Connecticut.
Publications
Max Theiler contributed to three books:
- Viral and Rickettsial Infections of Man (1948),
- Yellow Fever (1951), and
- The Arthropod-Borne Viruses of Vertebrates: An Account of The Rockefeller Foundation Virus Program, 1951–1970, Max Theiler and W. G. Downs. (1973) Yale University Press. New Haven and London. ISBN 0-300-01508-9.
Theiler wrote numerous papers, published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology.
Legacy and honors
- 1939, the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s Chalmers Medal
- 1945, Harvard University’s Flattery Medal
- 1949, the American Public Health Association’s Lasker Award
- 1951, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine