Canister

by Charles Richter and John Emrich
December 2021, p. 43

Seed stock canisterSeed stock canister for Jeryl Lynn Strain
National Museum of American History
This unassuming stainless-steel canister played a crucial role in saving millions upon millions of children from the effects of mumps. It was one of five vessels that held the seed stock for the Jeryl Lynn strain of mumps virus used to produce over three billion doses of vaccine.

The Jeryl Lynn strain was named after the daughter of Maurice Hilleman (AAI 1949), a microbiologist and immunologist who had previously developed a vaccine for Japanese B encephalitis during the Second World War. Hilleman also discovered antigenic shift and drift in influenza and developed a vaccine that help prevent a serious flu pandemic in 1957.

Five-year-old Jeryl Lynn woke her father up at 1:00 a.m. on March 23, 1963, complaining of swelling and pain in her throat. Hilleman quickly diagnosed mumps, then drove to his laboratory at Merck to retrieve cotton swabs and nutrient broth. He took these supplies home, swabbed Jeryl Lynn’s throat, and returned the sample to his lab.

Hilleman attenuated the mumps virus by repeatedly passing it through chicken embryo cells. In 1966, one of the first children to receive a dose of the experimental vaccine was Jeryl Lynn’s own sister, Kirsten.

Later, the seed stock for the Jeryl Lynn strain was placed in five 15-liter canisters for safe storage. By 2015, however, the green neoprene stoppers had started to fail. Merck scientists had to carefully transfer the seed stock to new containers without contaminating it. Failure could have resulted in a global shortage of mumps vaccine while new seed stock was produced, a process that would have taken up to seven years.

The transfer was successful, the vaccine supply was uninterrupted, and in 2017, the Hilleman family donated this canister along with other artifacts from Hilleman’s life, including his lab coat and several of his many vaccines, to the Smithsonian.

Vials of investigational live mumps vaccineVials of investigational live mumps vaccine (Jeryl Lynn Strain)
National Museum of American History
Over his long career, Hilleman was responsible for developing over 40 vaccines, including eight of the current standard childhood vaccinations. His vaccines continue to save millions of lives every year.

 

Maurice Hilleman’s canister, lab coat, and vaccines are held in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
 


Appeared with "Bacteria Eaters: The “Twort-d’Hérelle Phenomenon”" in the December 2021 issue of the AAI Newsletter

 

References

  • Anderson, Rachel. “Happy 50th anniversary of no mumps!” O Say Can You See: Stories from the Museum, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/mumps-vaccine (December 14, 2018).
  • Fauci, Anthony S. “Maurice R. Hilleman, 30 August 1919–11 April 2005,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 151, no 4.
  • Offit, Paul. Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.

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