Following the great news that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is approved for use today, here is a thread of women who helped modern vaccines get to where they are today:

1) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762) introduced smallpox inoculation into Western Medicine. While visiting the Ottoman Empire, she witnessed inoculations against smallpox. Wanting to spare her children suffering the disease, in 1718 she had her 4 y/o son, inoculated. 1/2

On her return to London, Mary promoted the procedure, despite resistance to it being an 'oriental folk treatment'. Thank god she did, as it inspired Edward Jenner's vaccination and by the 20th century smallpox had been eradicated. 2/2

2) Dr Anna Wessels Williams (1863–1954) Developed a diphtheria vaccine. Dr Anna's isolation of a strain of diphtheria in 1894 was used to develop the first diphtheria antitoxin and later a diphtheria vaccine. She even worked on the Rabies vaccine with one developed in 1898.

3) Dr Pearl Kendrick (1890 – 1980), Dr Grace Eldering (1900 – 1988) and Loney Clinton Gordon, developed whooping cough vaccine. Working on a limited budget They tested the vaccine on themselves first, before running a successful clinical trial 1/2

This resulted in the first vaccine being introduced in America in the 1940’s. They then combined it with two other vaccines (diphtheria and tetanus) into a single shot – known today as the DTP vaccine. 2/2

4) Dr Margaret Pittman (1901 – 1995)
Her work lead to HIB vaccine: helps prevent meningitis & pneumonia. A pioneering bacteriologist, Pittman’s research helped the development of vaccines against typhoid, cholera and whooping cough (working with Kendrick & Eldering). 1/2

She also discovered six types of Haemophilus-influenzae, one of which (Hib) was linked to serious infections including often-fatal meningitis in young children. Her work led to the development of vaccines against Hib. 2/2

5) Dr Isabel Morgan (1911 – 1996) - An early and important player in the race to find a polio vaccine.
Throughout the 1940s Morgan worked with a team in the USA to understand polio viruses. 1/2

They were the first to prove that an inactive or “killed” virus could produce immunity in monkeys, overturning the previous belief that only live viruses could create polio immunity. Her work fed directly into the development of Jonas Salk’s vaccine against polio in 1955.

6) Dr Anne Szarewski (1959-2014) Breakthrough led to the prevention of many cervical cancers. In the 1990s, Anne and her colleagues showed that human papillomavirus (HPV) was linked to cervical cancer. Over 10 years a vaccine was developed to prevent HPV and cervical cancer