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  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | National Institutes of Health

Dr. Bernice Eddy

  • Born in Glendale, West Virginia, grew up in Marietta, Ohio after her father’s death. She took pre-medical courses at Marietta College, intending to be a physician like her father and two brothers.
  • Her senior year of college she was awarded a fellowship in bacteriology at the University of Cincinnati, thus starting on her path to research. She also received her masters and Ph.D. while there. She later researched leprosy at a Public Health Service hospital in Louisiana, where she met her future husband Dr. Jerald G. Wooley, who would lead them to NIH (Peterson 1968).
  • Joined the NIH Laboratory of Biologics Control (later DBS) in 1937 (Peterson 1968).
  • In 1956 she worked with Dr. Sarah Stewart (NCI) and they identified the SE (Stewart-Eddy) polyoma virus, which can cause tumors. She also identified the simian virus 40 (SV-40). Her work led to the newborn hamster being the preferred animal for testing potentially oncogenic viruses of mammalian origin (Peterson 1968).
  • Twice Drs. Stewart and Eddy were nominated for the Nobel Prize for their work on the S-E polyoma virus (Georgetown University School of Medicine 2021).
  • Beginning in 1962 Dr. Eddy was the Chief of the Section on Experimental Virology within the Laboratory of Virology & Rickettsiology (Peterson 1968).
  • Eddy was an expert on pneumococcus and streptococcus, influenza and polio-myelitis vaccines, and on tumor-producing viruses (Peterson 1968).
  • Won a Superior Service Award from the Public Health Service in 1967 for her work on control testing of vaccines for polio-myelitis and respiratory diseases, and for her discovery and characterization of tumorigenic viruses (Peterson 1968).
  • Worked in Building 29, Room 207, then moved to Building 29A once it opened and worked in Room 3B20 (NIH Office of History & Stetten Museum 1963, 1965, 1967).
  • Need to write up something about the controversy in the 1950s with Dr. Murray, when Dr. Eddy was removed from her polio vaccine control activities duties.

Photos from The NIH Record (1965, 1968). Is it possible to get better quality copies?

Group photo circa 1960 for polio meetings on campus. Dr. Eddy is third from left. (Image from Always There, need to see which copy is best quality)

Bibliography:

Georgetown University School of Medicine. “Biography of Sarah Elizabeth Stewart, MD,

PhD.” Accessed September 21, 2021.https://som.georgetown.edu/stewartsocietybio/.

NIH Office of History & Stetten Museum. Telephone Directory, National Institutes of Health.

Misc. years. Bethesda, MD.

Peterson, Faye. “Dr. Eddy, Eminent Virologist Finds Challenge of Research Rewarding.” The

NIH Record, Volume XX, Issue No. 4. February 20, 1968. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1968. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1968/NIH-Record-1968-02-20.pdf. 
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