Max Theiler
Encyclopedia
Max Theiler was a South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n/American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 virologist
Virology
Virology is the study of viruses and virus-like agents: their structure, classification and evolution, their ways to infect and exploit cells for virus reproduction, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy...

. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

 in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

.

Career development

Theiler was born in Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...

, then the capital of the South African Republic
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...

 (now South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

), his father Arnold Theiler
Arnold Theiler
Sir Arnold Theiler Pour le Mérite] is considered to be the father of veterinary science in South Africa. He was born in Frick, Canton Aargau, Switzerland. He received his higher education, and later qualified as a veterinarian, in Zurich...

 was a veterinary bacteriologist from Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. He attended Pretoria Boys High School
Pretoria Boys High School
Pretoria Boys High School, also known as Boys High or PBHS, is a public, fee charging, English medium high school for boys located in Brooklyn, Pretoria, in the Gauteng province of South Africa....

, Rhodes University College
Rhodes University
Rhodes University is a public research university located in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, established in 1904. It is the province’s oldest university, and is one of the four universities in the province...

, and then University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...

 Medical School graduating in 1918. He left South Africa to study at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1922 he was awarded a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene and became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

 of London and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

. Theiler wanted to pursue a career in research, so in 1922 he took a position at the Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 School of Tropical Medicine. He spent several years investigating amoebic dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...

 and trying to develop a vaccine from rat-bite fever
Rat-bite fever
Rat-bite fever is an acute, febrile human illness caused by bacteria transmitted by rodents, rats in most cases, which is passed from rodent to human via the rodent's urine or mucous secretions. Alternative names for rat bite fever include streptobacillary fever, streptobacillosis, spirillary...

. He became assistant to Andrew Sellards and started working on yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

. In 1926 they disproved Hideyo Noguchi
Hideyo Noguchi
, also known as , was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease in 1911.-Early life:...

 that yellow fever was caused by the bacterium Leptospira icteroides, and in 1928 the year after the disease was identified conclusively as a virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...

, they showed that the African and South American viruses are immunologically identical, after Adrian Stokes induced yellow fever in Rhesus monkeys from India. In the course of this research Theiler himself contracted yellow fever but survived and developed immunity.

In 1930 Theiler moved to the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...

 in New York, where he later became director of the Virus Laboratory and where he spent the rest of his career.

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 thus set for Theiler to develop a vaccine against the disease. However, it was only in 1937, after the particularly virulent Asibi strain from West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

 had gone through more than a hundred subcultures, that Theiler and his colleague Hugh Smith announced the development of the 17-D vaccine. 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
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

.

Theiler was awarded the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene was founded in 1907 by Sir James Cantlie and George Carmichael Low. Sir Patrick Manson, the Society's first President is generally acknowledged as the father of tropical medicine. He passed the presidency on to the Nobel laureate Sir Ronald Ross ,...

's Chalmers Medal in 1939, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

's Flattery Medal in 1945, and the American Public Health Association
American Public Health Association
The American Public Health Association is Washington, D.C.-based professional organization for public health professionals in the United States. Founded in 1872 by Dr. Stephen Smith, APHA has more than 30,000 members worldwide...

's Lasker Award
Lasker Award
The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary...

 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
Theiler's encephalomyelitis virus
Theiler's Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus is a single stranded RNA murine cardiovirus from the family Picornaviridae that has been used as a mouse model for studying virally induced paralysis as well as encephalomyelitis comparable to Multiple sclerosis...

. The virus has been incredibly well characterized, and now serves as a well accepted model for studying Multiple Sclerosis.

Private life

He married Lillian Graham in 1928 and they had one daughter. He died in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

.

Publications

Max Theiler was a contributor 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. He wrote numerous papers in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology.
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