The First Measles Vaccine Available to Purchase

Like in the more familiar story of polio vaccine, the development of the first successful live attenuated vaccine against measles began in the laboratory of John Enders. One of the greatest virologists of the 20th century, Enders pioneered the technique of viral tissue culture, which makes it possible to grow viruses in vitro in cells nourished in laboratory media.¹  In 1949, he and his pediatric infectious disease fellows Thomas Weller and Frederick Robbins showed that poliovirus could be cultivated in tissue of nonneuronal origins, a discovery that set the stage for the first successful vaccines against the disease and led to a Nobel Prize in 1954.²  Enders himself was a remarkable character. He never tried to patent his work or share results with the media before peer review. He was consistently generous in sharing his knowledge with potential competitors, and despite his personal wealth he was equally known...