Scientist used daughter’s mumps virus to build vaccine still used today

In 1963, vaccine researcher Dr Maurice Hilleman was working to develop a safe and effective vaccine against mumps when his five-year-old daughter, Jeryl Lynn, developed the disease. One night, Jeryl Lynn woke Hilleman and showed him her swollen cheeks, a characteristic sign of mumps. He then swabbed her throat to collect a sample of the virus and drove it to his laboratory.Hilleman was the chief virologist at Merck Research Laboratories in the 1960s and had set out to create a mumps vaccine. At the time, mumps was considered a common childhood illness, and many parents underestimated its dangers. According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, scientists had already tried to develop a vaccine, but earlier attempts had problems. Some vaccines caused too many mumps symptoms, while others did not provide enough immunity.Jeryl Lynn’s infection gave Hilleman a chance to try a different approach.