1. Max Theiler was a South African-American virologist and physician.
19 Facts About Max Theiler
1. 2.
Max Theiler 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.
3.
Max Theiler went to London for postgraduate work at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, earning a 1922 diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene.
4.
Max Theiler lived and worked in that nation the rest of his life.
5.
Max Theiler was born in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic ; his father Arnold Max Theiler was a veterinary bacteriologist.
6.
Max Theiler attended Pretoria Boys High School, Rhodes University College, and University of Cape Town Medical School, graduating in 1918.
7.
Max Theiler left South Africa for London to study at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, King's College London, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
8.
Max 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.
9.
Max Theiler spent several years investigating amoebic dysentery and trying to develop a vaccine for rat-bite fever.
10.
In 1930, Max Theiler moved to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, where he later became director of the Virus Laboratory.
11.
Max Theiler was professor of epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine and the School of Public Health from 1964 to 1967.
12.
The stage was set for Max Theiler to develop a vaccine against the disease.
13.
Max Theiler first devised a test for the efficacy of experimental vaccines.
14.
Max 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.
15.
In 1937, Max Theiler discovered a filterable agent that was a known cause for paralysis in mice.
16.
Max Theiler found the virus was not transmittable to rhesus macaques and that only some mice developed symptoms.
17.
Max Theiler married Lillian Graham in 1928, and they had one daughter.
18.
Max Theiler died on 11 August 1972 in New Haven, Connecticut.
19.
Max Theiler wrote numerous papers, published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology.