On February 17, 1928, Michiaki Takahashi was born in Osaka, the virologist who in 1974 patented the first vaccine against chickenpox. Today, Google dedicates its Doodle to him, thus celebrating the researcher’s birth anniversary.
The image shows him sitting under the microscope with a child next to him with a face full of red bubbles, the typical itchy papules of chickenpox. A little further on, there is the scientist who inoculates the vaccine to a little girl and the illustration ends with the vials of the vaccine that in a few decades would have traveled around the world.
After studying medicine, Takahashi began working at the Infectious Disease Research Institute of Osaka University, focusing specifically on measles and polio viruses. It was a private event that shifted the virologist’s attention to chickenpox. Shortly after moving, together with his family, to the United States, Takahashi’s son fell ill with chickenpox, developing a particularly severe form of the disease.
Chickenpox, pay close attention to complications
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After the child recovered, the researcher decided to return to Japan and focused on developing a vaccine that could protect children from the chickenpox virus. In 1974, after laboratory research and clinical trials, Takahashi patented the vaccine which was soon authorized by the World Health Organization and adopted by 80 countries around the world.