When a polio outbreak hit Boston in 1955 and lines of sick children jammed the local children’s hospital, young medical resident Samuel Katz dove into the fray to help however he could. In that moment, he found his calling.
Once the polio flare-up passed, Katz arranged a meeting with John Enders, who had shared the Nobel Prize the previous year for his work isolating strains of the polio virus. He joined Enders’ team and eventually helped develop a vaccine for measles, an easily-spreadable virus that at the time killed hundreds of children each year.
The vaccine was “one of the landmark discoveries in childhood medicine during decades that also tamed chronic threats such as polio, rubella and mumps,” The Washington Post wrote in a 2022 story announcing Katz’s death. The work helped launch his renowned career in pediatrics and virology.
Katz came to Duke in 1968 where he chaired the department of pediatrics for 22 years and raised its national profile. In 1990 he left that role to work with his second wife, Catherine Wilfert MD, on AIDS research and prevention. He also chaired the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s committee on immunization practices. Katz received the 2003 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, given to public health leaders who save lives with vaccines.
“He had such a command of virology and clinical practice and was engaging in a very positive way,” Mary Klotman, dean of Duke’s medical school, told the New York Times in 2022. “He was a role model for the integration of science, clinical care and mentoring the next generation of clinicians.”
