Isabel Morgan
Isabel Merrick Morgan , also Morgan Mountain , (* August 20, 1911 , † August 18, 1996 ) was an American virologist at Johns Hopkins University , who - in a research group with David Bodian and Howard Howe - developed an experimental vaccine who protected monkeys against polio . She was the daughter of Thomas Hunt Morgan and Lilian Vaughan Sampson .
Life
Academic career and work in polio research
Isabel Morgan graduated from Stanford University and wrote her dissertation in bacteriology from the University of Pennsylvania . In 1938 she went to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and did research in the laboratory of Peter Olitsky (1886–1964) on vaccines against viral diseases such as polio and equine encephalomyelitis .
In 1944 Morgan - at the suggestion of David Bodian - joined a group of virologists at Johns Hopkins University and began attempts to vaccinate monkeys against polio with dead viruses. She grew polioviruses in nerve tissue and killed them with formaldehyde . After vaccination with the dead viruses, the animals were able to survive injections with live polioviruses in high concentrations.
Morgan's work was an essential link in the development chain for a polio vaccination with killed viruses, which culminated in the recognition of Jonas Salk's vaccination as the common one in 1955. Before Isabel Morgan did her research, no one knew that anything other than live viruses could protect against polio. Morgan's work in polio research only lasted from 1944 to 1949, making its impact in such a short time all the more remarkable. Oshinsky emphasizes her reluctance to take the next logical step, which is to attempt vaccination in humans.
Her work in polio research earned her high recognition among virus researchers. In January 1958 she was inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs, Georgia - as the only woman among 16 men.
Worked at the Westchester County Research Laboratory and Sloan-Kettering Center
In 1949, Isabel Morgan left Johns Hopkins and married former Air Force Colonel Joseph Mountain, who worked in data processing in New York. The couple moved to Westchester County and Isabel Morgan worked in the county administration's research department. After her marriage, Isabel Morgan never took up polio research. However, she published articles on polio in professional journals.
When her stepson Jimmy Mountain was killed in a plane crash in 1960, she gave up her work in county administration, studied biostatistics at Columbia University and graduated with a master's degree. She then worked as a consultant at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in Manhattan.
Isabel Morgan died in 1996 at the age of 85.
literature
- David Oshinsky : Polio: An American Story . Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-515294-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oshinsky, pp. 130-133.
- ↑ Journal of Experimental Medicine , Vol 76 (1942), pp 357-369
- ^ Oshinsky, p. 132
- ↑ where she appears as IM Mountain or Isabel Morgan Mauntain, such as B. in The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM) , Vol 108 (1958), pp. 505f.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Morgan, Isabel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Morgan, Isabel Merrick (full name); Mountain, Morgan (stage name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American virologist at Johns Hopkins University |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 20, 1911 |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 18, 1996 |