Kabir Singh
Google Doodle: Michiaki Takahashi’s son suffered chickenpox, inspiring the Japanese scientist to apply his knowledge to prevent the highly contagious disease.
Google’s Doodle artwork is commemorating the birthday of Dr. Michiaki Takahashi, a Japanese microbiologist who discovered the first chickenpox vaccine. Takahashi’s vaccine, which has been provided to millions of kids around the globe, is an effective way to avoid severe cases of infectious viral disease and its spread.
Tatsuro Kiuchi, a lead animator from Japan, has created today’s Google Doodle. Tatsuro Kiuchi remarked that by creating this Doodle, he was able to discover that immunizations can defeat an extremely infectious disease and alter the world.
Takahashi graduated from Osaka University with a medical degree in 1928 and attended the Research Institute for Microbial Disease in 1959. In 1963, he was granted a research fellowship at Baylor College in the United States to study measles and polioviruses. Takahashi’s kid contracted chickenpox around this time, pushing the Japanese researcher to focus his knowledge on controlling the highly communicable disease.
After replicating live but attenuated chickenpox viruses in human and animal tissue, Takahashi produced the varicella vaccine. During further investigation with immunosuppressed patients, the vaccine was proved to be exceedingly effective. As the only varicella vaccine approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases began rolling out the vaccine in Japan in 1986.
He went on to become the director of the Microbial Disease Study Group at Osaka University, a responsibility he held until his retirement.
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