Max Theiler

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Max Theiler

Born	January 30, 1899 Pretoria, South Africa
Died	August 11, 1972
Residence	USA
Nationality	South African
Field	Virology
Notable prizes	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1951)

Max Theiler (January 30, 1899 – August 11, 1972) was a South African virologist, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine for yellow fever.

Theiler was born in Pretoria, South Africa, his father Arnold Theiler was a veterinary bacteriologist. He attended Pretoria Boys High School, Rhodes University College, and then University of Cape Town Medical School graduating in 1918. He left South Africa to study at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School and 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 of London and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Theiler wanted to pursue a career in research, so in 1922 he took a position at the Harvard University School of Tropical Medicine. He spent several years investigating amoebic dysentery and trying to develop a vaccine from rat-bite fever. He became assistant to Andrew Sellards and started working on yellow fever. In 1926 they disproved Hideyo Noguchi that yellow fever was caused by a bacterium, and 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.

Theiler 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. He died, having never become a U.S. citizen, in New Haven, Connecticut.

[edit] Reference

• Charles, C.W., Jr. Theiler, Max. American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.