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Thomas Huckle Weller (June 15, 1915 – August 23, 2008) was an American virologist. He, John Franklin Enders
John Franklin Enders

John Franklin Enders was an United States medical scientist and Nobel laureate.Enders was born in West Hartford, Connecticut and was educated at the Noah Webster School at Hartford and St....
 and Frederick Chapman Robbins
Frederick Chapman Robbins

Frederick Chapman Robbins was an American pediatrician and virologist.He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954 along with John Franklin Enders and Thomas Huckle Weller....
 were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institutet. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Physiology or Medic...
 in 1954 for showing how to cultivate poliomyelitis viruses in a test tube, using tissue from a monkey.

Weller was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan

Michigan is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Anishinaabe language term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, and then went to the University of Michigan
University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan is a public university research university located in the state of Michigan. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, which also includes two regional campuses in University of Michigan-Flint and University of Michigan-Dearborn....
, where his father Carl Vernon Weller was a professor in the Department of Pathology. At Michigan, he studied medical zoology received a B.S.






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Thomas Huckle Weller (June 15, 1915 – August 23, 2008) was an American virologist. He, John Franklin Enders
John Franklin Enders

John Franklin Enders was an United States medical scientist and Nobel laureate.Enders was born in West Hartford, Connecticut and was educated at the Noah Webster School at Hartford and St....
 and Frederick Chapman Robbins
Frederick Chapman Robbins

Frederick Chapman Robbins was an American pediatrician and virologist.He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954 along with John Franklin Enders and Thomas Huckle Weller....
 were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institutet. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Physiology or Medic...
 in 1954 for showing how to cultivate poliomyelitis viruses in a test tube, using tissue from a monkey.

Weller was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan

Michigan is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Anishinaabe language term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, and then went to the University of Michigan
University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan is a public university research university located in the state of Michigan. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, which also includes two regional campuses in University of Michigan-Flint and University of Michigan-Dearborn....
, where his father Carl Vernon Weller was a professor in the Department of Pathology. At Michigan, he studied medical zoology received a B.S. and an M.S., with his masters thesis on fish parasites. In 1936, Weller entered Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University and currently the #1 medical school in America, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report....
, and in 1939 began working under John Franklin Enders, with whom he would later (along with Frederick Chapman Robbins) share the Nobel Prize. It was Enders who got Weller involved in researching viruses and tissue-culture techniques for determining infectious disease causes. Weller received his MD in 1940, and went to work at Children's Hospital in Boston. In 1942, in the middle of World War II, he entered the Army Medical Corps and was stationed at the Antilles Medical Laboratory in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is a Autonomy Territories of the United States of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands....
, earning the rank of Major and heading up the facility's Departments of Bacteriology, Virology and Parasitology. After the war, he returned to Children's Hospital in Boston, and it was there in 1947, he rejoined J.F. Enders in the newly created Research Division of Infectious Diseases. After several leading positions, he was appointed in 1954 the In July 1954, he was appointed Tropical Public Health Department Head the Harvard School of Public Health
Harvard School of Public Health

The Harvard School of Public Health is is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Medical and Academic Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, HSPH is considered one of the mos...
. Weller also served, from 1953-1959, as Director of the Commission on Parasitic Diseases of the American Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.

In addition to his research on polio, for which he won the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
, Weller has also contributed to treating schistosomiasis
Schistosomiasis

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease caused by several species of Trematoda of the genus Schistosoma.Although it has a low mortality rate, schistosomiasis often is a chronic illness that can damage internal organs and, in children, impair growth and cognitive development....
, and Coxsackie viruses
Coxsackie A virus

Coxsackie A virus is a cytolytic coxsackie virus of the Picornaviridae family, an enterovirus ....
. He was also the first to isolate the viruses responsible for herpes and for varicella.

In 1945, Weller married Kathleen Fahey. They had two sons and two daughters together.

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