Enders, John Franklin

Enders, John Franklin (1897-1985), American microbiologist and Nobel laureate, noted for his research in culturing viruses, which paved the way for viral vaccines. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, and educated at Yale and Harvard universities, he joined the faculty of the Harvard University Medical School in 1929, where in 1956 he became a professor. He joined the research division of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital in Boston in 1946. Enders led a research team that developed a technique of growing viruses in slices of tissue rather than in whole organisms or organs. First announced in 1949, this technique has become a strategic tool in controlling virus diseases; for example, it made possible the development of mass vaccination against poliomyelitis. Enders shared the 1954 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his co-workers Thomas Huckle Weller and Frederick Chapman Robbins.