Not all world-changing achievements require acts of bravery or self-sacrifice. Maurice Hilleman, for instance, found a different way to change the world—by creating life-saving vaccines. In 1963, after his daughter contracted mumps, Hilleman took a swab from her throat, rushed to his lab in the middle of the night, and developed the vaccine that is still used today. But that was just the beginning.
Hilleman went on to develop more than 40 vaccines, including those for measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia, and Haemophilus influenzae. His groundbreaking work has saved millions of lives and prevented countless complications from these diseases. The MMR vaccine alone has been administered to over a billion children worldwide.
All of this began with a father’s determination to protect his daughter from mumps.
