New Delhi: Honouring the inventor of the chickenpox vaccine, Google on February 7 is celebrating the 94th birthday of Japanese virologist Dr Michiaki Takahashi by dedicating a doodle.
Today’s Google Doodle has been illustrated by a Japan-based guest artist Tatsuro Kiuchi.
Dr Takahashi, born in Japan's Osaka in 1928, was the first to develop a vaccine against chickenpox. He developed the first vaccine targeting the varicella virus that causes chickenpox in 1974. The chickenpox vaccine was subjected to rigorous scrutiny. With years of research with immunosuppressed patients, the vaccine was proven to be extremely effective.
Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, began the rollout in Japan in 1986 as the only chickenpox vaccine approved by World Health Organization (WHO).
Dr Takahashi's chickenpox vaccine was named 'Oka' and has been widely used to curb severe cases of contagious viral disease and its transmission. It has been administrated to millions of children across the world so far.
Dr Michiaki Takahashi Bio
Dr Takahashi earned his medical degree from Osaka University and worked as a research scholar at Research Institute for Microbial Disease in 1959. In 1963 Dr Takahashi accepted a research fellowship from Baylor College, US, after studying measles and polioviruses.
He returned to Japan in 1965 and began culturing live but weakened chickenpox viruses in animal and human tissue. Dr Takahash was appointed the director of Osaka University’s Microbial Disease Study Group — a position he held until his retirement.
He died of cardiac arrest on December 16, 2013.