Wilson Smith

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilson Smith (born June 21, 1897 in Great Harwood near Blackburn , † July 10, 1965 in Woolton Hill near Newbury ) was a British virologist and immunologist . He was part of the group that first isolated the influenza virus and developed one of the first vaccines against influenza ("real viral flu").

Smith lost his father when he was ten, and his mother looked after the four children alone. While still in school, he was called in to teach by his principal at Accrington Grammar School. During the First World War he was drafted and served as a medical soldier, which sparked his interest in medicine. From 1919 he studied medicine at Manchester University with a degree both as a doctor and as a surgeon (MB, Ch. B.) 1923. He was then a doctor in Manchester and worked for a year as a ship's doctor. He then studied bacteriology (diploma in 1927). He went into research and led a virus research group at the Medical Research Council (National Institute of Medical Research) in Hampstead , north London. There he succeeded in isolating the human flu virus (Influenza A) in 1933 with Christopher Andrewes and Patrick Laidlaw and transmitting it to ferrets . Soon afterwards, a group led by Alice Chenoweth succeeded in cultivating the influenza virus in mouse tissue, which led to the first vaccine. In 1935, Wilson Smith showed the possibility (as before with other viruses) to multiply the influenza virus in fertilized chicken eggs (chicken embryos). In 1936, Wilson Smith and his group developed a vaccine with a live virus and at the same time Thomas Francis and Thomas Magill with a dead virus. In 1937, Anatol Smordintsew tested Smith's vaccine in the Soviet Union , but around 20 percent of those vaccinated developed feverish symptoms. In 1939 he became professor of bacteriology at the University of Sheffield and in 1946 professor at the University College Hospital Medical School of the University of London. In 1960 he retired.

Smith was also instrumental in introducing polio vaccination in the UK and serving on the Medical Research Council's Biological Research Board.

Smith was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1949) and the Royal College of Physicians (1959), whose Bose Prize he received in 1959. In 1957 he was Leeuwenhoek Lecturer of the Royal Society ( Virus-Host Cell Relationships ) and in 1960 its Vice-President. In 1960 he received the Graham Gold Medal from the University of London.

He had been married to bacteriologist Muriel Mary Nutt since 1927 and had two daughters. As a hobby he played the violin in string quartets with friends.

His brother George Wilson became a Lecturer in Mycology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his brother Howard Lecturer in Theology at the University of Manchester.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilson Smith, CH Andrewes and PP Laidlaw: A Virus Obtained From Influenza Patients . In: The Lancet . Vol. 222, 1933, pp. 66-68.
  2. ^ Susan and Stanley Plotkin A short history of vaccination in Stanley Plotkin, Walter Orenstein, Paul Offit (editors) Vaccines , Elsevier, Saunders 2008
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Wilson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British virologist and immunologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Great Harwood at Blackburn
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1965
Place of death Woolton Hill near Newbury