Maurice Ralph Hilleman (August 30, 1919 – April 11, 2005) was a leading American microbiologist who specialized in vaccinology and developed over 40 vaccines, an unparalleled record of productivity. According to one estimate, his vaccines save nearly eight million lives each year. He has been described as one of the most influential vaccinologists ever. He has been called the "father of modern vaccines". Robert Gallo called Hilleman "the most successful vaccinologist in history". He has been described by some researchers as having saved more lives than any other scientist in the 20th century. Of the 14 vaccines routinely recommended in American vaccine schedules, Hilleman and his team developed eight: those for measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae bacteria. During the influenza pandemic in Southern China, his vaccine is believed to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He also played a key role in developing the vaccine for the Hong Kong flu, as well as roles in the discovery of antigenic shift and drift, the cold-producing adenoviruses, the hepatitis viruses, and the potentially cancer-causing virus SV40.
Biography
Early life and education Hilleman was born on a farm near the high plains town of Miles City, Montana. His parents were Anna (Uelsmann) and Gustav Hillemann, and he was their eighth child. His twin sister died on the day the twins were born, and his mother died two days later. He was raised in the nearby household of his uncle, Bob Hilleman, and worked in his youth on the family farm. He credited much of his success to his work with chickens as a boy; since the 1930s, fertile chicken eggs had often been used to grow viruses for vaccines. His family belonged to the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. When he was in the eighth grade, he discovered Charles Darwin, and was caught reading On the Origin of Species in church. Later in life, he rejected religion. Due to lack of funds, he almost failed to attend college. His eldest brother interceded, and Hilleman graduated first in his class in 1941 from Montana State University with family help and scholarships. He won a fellowship to the University of Chicago and received his doctoral degree in microbiology in 1944. His doctoral thesis was on chlamydia infections, which were then thought to be caused by a virus. Hilleman showed that these infections were actually caused by a species of bacterium, Chlamydia trachomatis, that grows only inside of cells.
Career After joining E.R. Squibb & Sons (now Bristol-Myers Squibb), Hilleman developed a vaccine against Japanese B encephalitis, a disease that threatened American troops in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. As chief of the Department of Respiratory Diseases at Army Medical Center (now the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) from 1948 to 1957, Hilleman discovered the genetic changes that occur when the influenza virus mutates, known as antigenic shift and Antigenic drift, which he theorized would mean that a yearly influenza vaccination would be necessary. In 1957, Hilleman joined Merck & Co. (Rahway, New Jersey), as head of its new virus and cell biology research department in West Point, Pennsylvania. It was at Merck that Hilleman developed most of the forty experimental and licensed animal and human vaccines for which he is credited, working both at the laboratory bench as well as providing scientific leadership. Hilleman served on many national and international advisory boards and committees, academic, governmental and private, including the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research Program Evaluation and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the National Immunization Program.
Asian flu pandemic Hilleman was among the first to recognize that a 1957 outbreak of influenza in Hong Kong could become a huge pandemic. Working on a hunch, after nine 14-hour days he and a colleague determined that it was a new strain of flu that could kill millions. Forty million doses of vaccines were prepared and distributed. Although 69,000 Americans died, the pandemic could have resulted in many more deaths in the United States. Hilleman was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from the American military for his work. His vaccine is believed to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. In 1968, during the Hong Kong flu pandemic, Hilleman and his team also played a key role in developing a vaccine, and nine million doses became available in 4 months.
SV40 Hilleman was one of the vaccine pioneers to warn about the possibility that simian viruses might contaminate vaccines. The best-known of these viruses is SV40, a viral contaminant of some of the polio vaccines produced from 1955-1963. This included some produced for both Salk's inactivated virus vaccine and the then relatively new Albert Sabin's oral live attenuated vaccine.
Mumps vaccine In 1963, his daughter Jeryl Lynn came down with the mumps. He cultivated material from her, and used it as the basis of a mumps vaccine. The Jeryl Lynn strain of the mumps vaccine is still used. The strain is used in the trivalent (measles, mumps and rubella) MMR vaccine that he also developed, the first approved vaccine to incorporate multiple live virus strains. Like many other vaccines and medications of that time period, the vaccine was tested in children with intellectual disabilities who lived in group homes; this was because, given the poor hygiene and cramped quarters of their accommodations, they were at much higher risk of infectious disease.
Hepatitis B vaccine He and his group invented a vaccine for hepatitis B by treating blood serum with pepsin, urea and formaldehyde. This was licensed in 1981, but withdrawn in 1986 in the United States and replaced by a vaccine that was produced in yeast. The latter vaccine is still in use. By 2003, 150 countries were using it and the incidence of the disease in the United States in young people had decreased by 95%. Hilleman considered his work on this vaccine to be his single greatest achievement. Liver transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl said "...controlling the hepatitis B virus scourge ranks as one of the most outstanding contributions to human health of the twentieth century...Maurice removed one of the most important obstacles to the field of organ transplantation".
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