Dr Michiaki Takahashi, Chickenpox vaccine pioneer’s birthday celebrated by Google Doodle

            On February 17, Google Doodle commemorated Japanese virologist Dr Michiaki Takahashi’s 94th birthday with a beautiful visual. Dr Takahashi created the first chickenpox vaccine.

Tatsuro Kiuchi, a guest artist from Japan, drew today’s Google Dole, which contains two animated miniatures of Michiaki Takahashi.

Takahashi’s vaccine has been delivered to millions of children worldwide as an effective approach to avoid severe instances of the infectious viral illness and its spread since its development.

Michiaki Takahashi was born in Osaka, Japan on this day in 1928. He received his medical degree from Osaka University and began working at the Osaka University Research Institute for Microbial Disease in 1959. Dr Takahashi took a research fellowship at Baylor College in the United States in 1963 after investigating measles and polio viruses. During this time, his kid had chickenpox, prompting him to devote his knowledge to combating the extremely contagious infection.

In 1965, Dr Takahashi returned to Japan and began cultivating live but attenuated chickenpox viruses in animal and human tissue. It was ready for clinical testing after only five years of development. Dr Takahashi discovered the first vaccination against the varicella virus, which causes chickenpox, in 1974. It was then submitted to thorough investigation with immunocompromised individuals and found to be exceedingly successful. The Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases at Osaka University began the deployment of the sole World Health Organization-approved varicella vaccine in Japan in 1986.

Dr Takahashi’s life-saving vaccination was quickly adopted in more than 80 nations. Every year, millions of instances of chickenpox are avoided as a result of his ideas.