Weller, Thomas WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY596•
advocated asepsis and other general reforms in American hos-
pitals to control disease and advance medical care.
Welch was born in Norfolk, Connecticut in 1850. He
attended Yale and graduated in 1870. He then studied to be a
surgeon at Columbia University, earning his M.D. in 1875.
Welch then pursued advanced studies in Europe. He studied at
several universities, but was perhaps most influenced by his
time in Berlin. He returned to the United States in 1878 and
was a professor and physician at Bellevue Hospital and
Medical College in New York.
Welch conducted most of his career research as a pro-
fessor and pathologist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University
and hospital. He accepted a position at the emerging hospital
and medical school in 1884. His commitment to hospital
reform and public healthled to his discovery of the cause of
gas gangrene. Later, Welch was named the director of the
School of Hygieneand Public Health.
Welch’s commitment to public health, as well as clini-
cal medicine, garnered several awards, including the U.S.
Army Distinguished Service Medal and Citation. Because
gangrene was not only a serious surgical risk, but also an
endemic problem with battle wounds, Welch’s identification
of Bacillus welchiiwas of military and medical interest.
In addition to his academic appointments, Welch held
several offices in professional organizations. He founded the
Journal of Experimental Medicinein 1896. Welch served on
the Maryland State Board of Health for 31 years. He was pres-
ident of the American Medical Association in 1910.
Welch died in 1934, while still serving on several med-
ical boards.See alsoBacteria and bacterial infection; History of micro-
biologyWWeller, Thomas ELLER, THOMAS(1915- )
American physicianThomas Weller was corecipient, with John F. Endersand
Frederick Robbins, of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medi-
cine in 1954. This award was given for the trio’s successful
growth of the poliomyelitis(polio) virus in a non-neural tissue
culture. This development was significant in the fight against
the crippling disease polio, and eventually led to the develop-
ment, by Jonas Salkin 1953, of a successful vaccination
against the virus. It also revolutionized viral work in the labo-
ratory and aided the recognition of many new types of viruses.
Weller also distinguished himself with his studies of human
parasitesand the virusesthat cause rubella and chickenpox.
Thomas Huckle Weller was born June 15, 1915, in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. His parents were Elsie A. (Huckle) and Dr.
Carl V. Weller. He received his B.S. in 1936 and M.S. in 1937,
both from the University of Michigan, where his father was
chair of the pathology department. He continued his studies at
Harvard Medical School, where he met and roomed with his
future Nobel corecipient Robbins. In 1938, Weller received a
fellowship from the international health division of the
Rockefeller Foundation, which allowed him to study publichealthin Tennessee and malariain Florida, topics which first
interested him during his undergraduate years.
Weller graduated from Harvard with magna cum laude
honors in parasitology, receiving his M.D. in 1940. He also
received a fellowship in tropical medicine and a teaching fel-
lowship in bacteriology. He completed an internship in pathol-
ogy and bacteriology (1941) at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
He then began a residency at Children’s, with the intention of
specializing in pediatrics, before enlisting in the U.S. Army
during World War II.
Weller served in the Army Medical Corps from 1942 to- He was initially given teaching assignments in tropical
medicine, but he was soon made officer in charge of bacteri-
ology and virologywork in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His major
research there related to pneumoniaand the parasitic disease
schistosomiasis, an infection that is centered in the intestine
and damages tissue and the circulatory system. Before his mil-
itary service ended, he moved to the Army Medical School in
Washington D.C. Upon his discharge in 1945, Weller was
married to Kathleen Fahey, with whom he had two sons and
two daughters. Returning to Boston’s Children’s Hospital, he
finished his residency and began a post-doctoral year working
with Enders.
During 1948, Weller was working with the mumps
virus, which Enders had been researching since the war. After
one experiment, Weller had a few tubes of human embryonic
tissue left over, so he and Enders decided to see what the virus
poliomyelitis might do in them. A small amount of success
prompted the duo, who had been joined in their research by
Robbins, to try growing the virus in other biological mediums,
including human foreskin and the intestinal cells of a mouse.
The mouse intestine did not produce anything, but the trio
finally had significant viral growth with human intestinal
cells. This was the first time poliomyelitis had been grown in
human or simian tissue other than nerve or brain. Using antibi-
oticsto ward off unwanted bacterial invasion, the scientists
were able to isolate the virus for study.
Once poliomyelitis was grown and isolated in tissue
cultures it was possible to closely study the nature of the virus,
which in turn made it possible for Salk to create a vaccinein - Besides leading to an inhibitor against a debilitating dis-
ease, a major result of the trio’s development was a decrease
in the need for laboratory animals. As Weller was quoted say-
ing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, “In the instance of
poliomyelitis, one culture tube of human or monkey cells
became the equivalent of one monkey.” In times prior, viruses
had to be injected into living animals to monitor their potency.
Now, with tissue culture growth, cell changes were apparent
under the microscope, showing the action of the virus and
eliminating the need for the animals. The techniques for grow-
ing cells in tissue cultures developed by Weller and his asso-
ciates were not only applicable to the poliomyelitis virus,
however. They were soon copied by many other labs and sci-
entists and quickly led to the identification, control, and study
of several previously unrecognized virus types. For their
work, and the improvements in scientific research it made pos-
sible, Weller, Enders, and Robbins shared the 1954 Nobel
Prize in physiology or medicine.
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