August 25, 2008 Nobel-winning polio researcher dies in Mass.

BOSTON (AP) - Doctor Thomas Weller -- a longtime Harvard
professor whose research on the polio virus earned him and two
others a Nobel prize in 1954 -- has died at age 93.

He and two Children's Hospital colleagues -- John Enders and
Frederick Robbins -- shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their
discovery of a way to grow the polio virus in safe tissue cultures,
leading to the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines against
polio.

Their work also helped pave the way for the development of
vaccines for other viral disease such as measles and chicken pox
and proved to be a crucial aid to cancer research.

Weller also was an expert in tropical diseases and at the time
of his death was the Richard Pearson Strong professor of tropical
medicine emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health.

His son says Weller died in his sleep on Saturday at his home in
Needham.