Weller, Thomas H.

Weller, Thomas H. (Huckle) (1915–  ) virologist, parasitologist; born in Ann Arbor, Mich. After becoming a pediatrician, he taught and performed research at Harvard Medical School (1940–41, 1948–85). He shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in physiology for discovering that poliomyelitis virus can grow in tissue culture, thus enabling development of a polio vaccine. He isolated and investigated two worms parasitic in humans, demonstrated that chicken pox and shingles are caused by the same virus, cultivated the mumps and Coxsackie viruses, and isolated the viral agents of rubella and cytomegalic inclusion disease.