Dr. Samuel L. KatzA virologist who was part of the Harvard Medical School research team that developed the measles vaccine, a breakthrough that has saved countless lives more than half a century ago, died Monday at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
His son David confirmed the death.
Dr. Katz then rose to prominence as president of the Department of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine.
Dr. Katz started fighting measles in 1956. Dr. John EndersTwo years earlier, Dr. Enders won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how to grow the polio virus in culture. This was an important breakthrough for Jonas his Salk in developing his polio vaccine, leading to widespread vaccination success.
Dr. Enders’ lab had already isolated the measles virus from a 13-year-old boy when Dr. Katz arrived there as a researcher. Measles was a major medical threat at the time. During his decade until a vaccine became available in 1963, nearly every child in the United States had measles by the time he was 15, and 3 to 4 million people were infected with measles each year. rice field. an estimated 400-500 deaths per year, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Worldwide, measles kills 2.6 million people a year before a vaccine is available the World Health Organization said.
“I got to work with Milan Milovanovic, a visitor from Yugoslavia. He gave me a lot of practical, bench work.” Dr. Katz told Dartmouth MedicineAlumni Magazine, 2009. serious side effects.
Dr. Katz was involved in inoculating rhesus monkeys with the virus.
“And when we gave the chicken virus to the monkeys, they didn’t develop viremia (the virus in their blood).” “The monkeys didn’t develop fever, nasal congestion, conjunctivitis, or rash. no,” he said As stated in the podcast “Open Forum Infectious Diseases”:” 2014. “But they developed antibodies.”
The chick virus was injected into public school students with neurological and central nervous system problems. Its use by laboratories reflects an era when ethical standards regarding human subjects were lax.
“A few weeks later they had antibodies to the measles virus,” Dr. Katz recalled.
He became a research associate in the lab in 1958, a title he held for the next ten years. During that time, he also served as a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth He Israel Hospital, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Katz played two other notable roles in the development of measles vaccines. One is working with a pharmaceutical company that wants to manufacture a vaccine.
“He was forever sending vials of the virus to Merck and other companies.” I. George Miller Jr. A professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, who joined the lab in 1961, said in a telephone interview: “He was kind of a humorist when it came to vaccines.”
In another role, at the request of a British pediatrician, David Morley Dr. Katz brought a prototype vaccine to Nigeria in 1961 to vaccinate children highly susceptible to measles as the system was weakened by malaria, intestinal parasites, vitamin A deficiency and protein depletion. .
Parents in Nigeria were used to losing their children to measles. He had a mortality rate of 5-15% if he got the virus. While there, Dr. Katz recalled hearing people say, “Don’t count your children until you’re cured of measles,” on the “Open Forum” podcast.
He vaccinated the children in the village there and they became immune.
A measles vaccine was licensed in 1963 and quickly became widely available. Eight years later, it was incorporated into the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.
Samuel Lawrence Katz was born on May 29, 1927 in Manchester, New Hampshire. His father Morris was a railroad executive. His mother, Ethel (Lawrence) Katz, was a homemaker.
He entered Dartmouth College in 1944, hoping to become a journalist. His interest turned to medicine after his first year, and he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to hospital training school in San Diego.
He returned to Dartmouth after the war and received a BA in Political Science in 1948. He also took the pre-medical course he needed to enter Dartmouth Medical School (at the time he was a two-year course). He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in medicine in 1950, and in 1952 he graduated from Harvard Medical School.
After interning at Beth Israel, he was a resident at Children’s Hospital, an educational institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School. While there, he witnessed a polio epidemic in his summer of 1955, the year his vaccine became available in Salk.
He worked in the hospital’s polio ward that summer and saw the devastation of the disease firsthand. When the crisis eased, he asked permission to work with Dr. Enders.
“We worked in the lab all our lives — working with viruses, cell cultures, blood samples, potential vaccines,” Dr. Katz said on the podcast. He was a legitimate investigator. “
Dr. Katz left Harvard University in 1968 to join the Duke University School of Medicine. For 22 years he served as head of pediatrics and contributed to his rise to national status.
“He was well versed in virology and clinical practice and approached it in a very positive way.” Dr. Mary Crotman, The dean of Duke Medical School said in a telephone interview: “He was a role model for science, the integration of clinical care, and the teaching of the next generation of clinicians.”
Dr. Katz resigned from running Duke Pediatrics in 1990 to work with his second wife, Dr. Katherine Wilfert, an HIV/AIDS researcher, activist, and professor of pediatrics at Duke Medical School. she was the chief investigator A pediatric AIDS clinical trial that began in 1987 showed that the drug AZT was effective in reducing the incidence of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by more than 60%.
Dr. Wilfert left Duke in 1996 and Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS FoundationDr. Katz continued to teach at Duke University until his retirement in 1997.
In addition to his son David, two sons survive, John and William. Five daughters, Deborah Miora, Susan Calderon, Penelope Katz Fisher, Rachel Wilfert, and Katie Regen. and 17 grandchildren. His marriage to Betsy Cohan ended in divorce. His marriage to Dr. Wilfert her death in 2020A son, Samuel Jr., died in 1980.
Dr. Katz became famous as an advocate of vaccines.He was chairman of the CDC’s advisory board vaccination committee practice from 1985 to 1993 and 2003 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, This is given to public health leaders who save lives through vaccines. This medal is named after the doctor who developed the oral polio vaccine.
“He was someone you could count on intellectual rigor, who never panicked and wanted to do the best he could in his field.” Peter Hotez The dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine said in an interview: He added, “He must be scheming about the anti-vaccine activism that is causing people to refuse the Covid vaccine.”
