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

Paul D. Parkman

  • Grew up in upstate New York. Attended Saint Lawrence University and State University of New York College of Medicine at Syracuse where he graduated first in his medical school class.
  • Interned at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY and then completed residency at Upstate Medical Center.
  • Entered the “doctors draft” in 1960 and was assigned as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
  • Isolated the Rubella virus from infected soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ.
  • Joined NIH in 1963, working in the Laboratory of Viral Immunology. Became Chief of the Section on General Virology in 1971.
  • 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.
  • 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, second floor.
  • Became Deputy Director of the Bureau of Biologics in 1980, moving to the first floor of Building 29.
  • Became Director of CBER in 1987 and served in this role until retirement.


Photo from National Library of Medicine

Bibliography:

Davis, Frances W., editor. “Rubella Immunity Test Patent Issued to DBS; Developed by NIH

Team.” The NIH Record, Volume XXIII, Issue No. 15. July 20, 1971. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1971. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1971/NIH-Record-1971-07-20.pdf.


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

Misc. years. Bethesda, MD.

 

Parkman, Paul D. Interview by Sarah Leavitt. June 7, 2005. Transcript on file, NIH Office of

History & Stetten Museum, Bethesda, MD. Accessed September 21, 2021.            https://history.nih.gov/display/history/Parkman%2C+Paul+D.+2005.

 

Suter, Margaret, editor. “Dr. Paul D. Parkman Named One of the 10 Outstanding Young Men

of the Year.” The NIH Record, Volume XX, Issue No. 2. January 23, 1968. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1968. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1968/NIH-Record-1968-01-23.pdf.
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