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Montana Childhood Shaped A Relentless Drive
- Maurice Hilleman grew up in rural Montana, survived multiple childhood near-deaths, and felt driven to be noticed by his father.
- These experiences shaped his work ethic and obsession with producing practical scientific results.
Predicting Flu Shifts Prevented Pandemics
- Hilleman discovered how influenza viruses shift between species and set up a system to update flu vaccines annually.
- His work enabled early pandemic detection and likely prevented many deaths in the 1957 flu outbreak.
Midnight Swab That Started A Vaccine
- Maurice Hilleman secretly swabbed his five-year-old daughter Geraldine at 1 AM to get a mumps sample for vaccine development.
- He used that personal sample as the starting point for the GerAdine strain that became the mumps vaccine.