Dr. Paul D. Parkman was one of the inventors of the rubella vaccine. Rubella is a contagious viral infection best known by its distinctive red rash.
Paul Parkman grew up in upstate New York. He attended Saint Lawrence University and State University of New York College of Medicine at Syracuse where he graduated first in his medical school class.
He then interned at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY and completed residency at Upstate Medical Center.
Dr. Parkman entered the “doctors draft” in 1960 and was assigned as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps to Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He and his colleagues isolated the Rubella virus from infected soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Dive
class
grid-col-4
Image Modified
Span
class
credit
FDA History Office
Dive
preface
class
grid-row grid-gap
Dive
class
grid-col-6
He joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1963, working in the Laboratory of Viral Immunology in the Division of Biologics Standards (DBS). Dr. Parkman became Chief of the Section on General Virology in 1971.
Dr. Parkman went on to develop the first Rubella vaccine with Dr. Harry M. Meyer, Jr. at NIH; their vaccine started clinical trials in 1965 at the Arkansas Children’s Colony and was licensed commercially in 1969.
He was part of the team that received a patent in 1971 for the rubella immunity test. The Laboratory of Viral Immunology was, at the time, in Building 29A on the second floor.
Dive
class
grid-col-6
Image Modified
Span
class
caption
Dr. Harry M. Meyer, Jr., at left, and Dr. Paul D. Parkman, at right, with the rubella virus.
