John Franklin Enders was born on February 10th, 1897, at West Hartford, Connecticut. He is known for culturing polio virus, isolating the measles virus, and developing the measles vaccine.
Enders’ studies were interrupted by World War I, where he served as a pilot, but he returned to Yale to earn his Bachelor’s Degree and then Harvard for advanced degrees. Initially he dabbled in real estate and teaching English before he settled on studying bacteriology and immunology.
In 1938, Enders started researching mammalian viruses such as mumps. His work with others resulted in diagnostic tests for mumps and ways to immunize against it.
In 1946, he started a research lab for infectious diseases at the Children’s Medical Center at Boston and focused on polio. During this time Jonas Salk relied on the techniques used by Enders to produce poliovirus in the lab, and then Salk developed a polio vaccine in 1952. Salk was credited with the vaccine, but he did not acknowledge the work of others like Enders that led to the vaccine. Enders and other scientists on his team earned the Nobel Prize in 1954 for their efforts.
Also in 1954, Enders identified the measles virus and began development of the measles vaccine. The New York Times pronounced to the world in September 1961 that the measles vaccine worked.
Enders died in 1985, and is recognized for his many contributions to science and lives saved with honorary doctoral degrees from thirteen different institutions of higher learning.
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