Max Theiler
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{{Infobox Scientist
| name = Max Theiler
| birth_date = {{birth date|1899|1|30|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Pretoria]], [[South Africa]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1972|8|11|1899|1|30}}
| residence = [[United States of America|USA]]
| nationality = [[South Africa]]n, [[Swiss]]
| field = [[Virology]]
| prizes = [[Image:Nobel prize medal.svg|20px]] [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] (1951)
}}
'''Max Theiler''' ([[January 30]], [[1899]] – [[August 11]], [[1972]]) was a [[South Africa]]n/[[Swiss]] [[virology|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|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]], [[King's College London]], and at 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 the bacterium ''Leptospira icteroides'', 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, after Adrian Stokes induced yellow fever in [[Rhesus monkeys]] from India. In the course of this research Theiler himself contracted yellow fever but survived and developed immunity.
In 1930 Theiler moved to the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] in New York, where he later became director of the Virus Laboratory and where he spent the rest of his career.
After passing the yellow fever virus through laboratory mice, Theiler found that the weakened virus conferred immunity on Rhesus monkeys. The stage was thus set for Theiler to develop a vaccine against the disease. However, it was only in 1937, after the particularly virulent Asibi strain from [[West Africa]] had gone through more than a hundred subcultures, that Theiler and his colleague Hugh Smith announced the development of the 17-D vaccine. Between 1940 and 1947 the Rockefeller Foundation produced more than 28 million doses of the vaccine and finally ended yellow fever as a major disease. For this work Theiler received the 1951 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.
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]].
====Private life====
He married Lillian Graham in 1928 and they had one daughter. He died in [[New Haven, Connecticut]].
====Publications====
Max Theiler was a contributor to two books, ''Viral and Rickettsial Infections of Man'' (1948) and ''Yellow Fever'' (1951). He wrote numerous papers in ''The American Journal of Tropical Medicine'' and ''Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology''.
====References====
*Charles, C.W., Jr. Theiler, Max. American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
*Theiler, Max: A Dictionary of Scientists. Oxford University Press, 1999.
{{Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Laureates 1951-1975}}
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
|NAME= Theiler, Max
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[South Africa]]n virologist
|DATE OF BIRTH= [[January 30]], [[1899]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH= [[Pretoria]], [[South Africa]]
|DATE OF DEATH= [[August 11]], [[1972]]
|PLACE OF DEATH= unknown
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT: Theiler, Max}}
[[Category:1899 births]]
[[Category:1972 deaths]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine]]
[[Category:Old Rhodians]]
[[Category:South African scientists]]
[[Category:Virologists]]
[[Category:University of Cape Town alumni]]
[[Category:Alumni of King's College London]]
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[[ja:マックス・タイラー]]
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[[zh:马克斯·泰累尔]]