Thomas Francis, Jr. was
the first American scientist to isolate the human flu virus. He played a
prominent role in the development of the first influenza vaccine, and in the
testing and analysis of Jonas Salk's poliomyelitis vaccine. Francis'
contributions as a physician, virologist and epidemiologist earned him a U.S.
Medal of Freedom, as well as accolades from Time
magazine, which once described him as the "No. 1 U.S. influenza man".
Early Life and
Education
Thomas Francis, Jr. was born in Gas City, Indiana
on July 15, 1900. The son of a steelworker, his family later moved to western Pennsylvania, where Francis earned a scholarship to
attend Allegheny College
in Meadville.
Upon graduation in 1921, he enrolled at the Yale University School of Medicine
in New Haven, Connecticut. There, Thomas Francis studied
under Dr. Francis Blake, an expert in infectious diseases such as measles.
The Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research and the NYU College
of Medicine
After graduating from Yale in 1925, Thomas Francis, Jr. went
to work for Rufus I. Cole, chief of hospital at New York City's Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research. As part of an elite research team, Francis helped prepare
vaccines against bacterial pneumonia, an infection which causes congestion and
swelling in the lungs. Later, Francis extended his study of infectious diseases
to influenza, a highly-contagious virus which had killed more people in 1918 –
1919 than had died in all of World War I.
In 1935, Thomas Francis, Jr. became the first American
virologist and epidemiologist to isolate the flu virus. He also characterized
the virus' complex antigenic shifts, the process by which two different strains
combine to form a new subtype with a mixture of surface antigens from the two
original strains. Three years later, Francis was named professor of
bacteriology and department chair at the New York University College of Medicine,
where he remained during the rest of the 1930s.
The U.S. Army Epidemiological
Board
In 1941, the year in which the United States entered World War II,
Thomas Francis was appointed director of the Commission on Influenza of the U.S.
Army Epidemiological Board. As the nation increased the size of its armed
forces for a possible conflict with the Axis powers, military planners worried
about how a flu pandemic like the one of 1918 – 1919 would undermine troop
strength. Indeed, as the American Medical Association (AMA) had noted about
World War I and the ensuing influenza pandemic, "Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting
men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole
might to combating the greatest enemy of all - infectious disease".
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 2 of this biography.
Resources
http://www.polio.umich.edu/history/francis.html
http://www.medaloffreedom.com/ThomasFrancis.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850443,00.html?promoid=googlep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_University
http://www.allegheny.edu/
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_shift
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1529354&pageindex=1
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