Samuel Katz, MD, a prominent virologist and pediatrician who helped create the measles vaccine, died Oct. 31 at age 95, The Washington Post reported.
Dr. Katz graduated from Boston-based Harvard Medical School in 1952. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital, where he later became a staff member, working alongside John Enders, PhD, an immunologist who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his polio research. Drs. Katz and Enders, along with other collaborators, spent more than a decade developing a vaccine for measles, which was licensed in the U.S. in 1963.
In 1968, Dr. Katz joined Durham, N.C.-based Duke University School of Medicine as head of pediatrics, a role he stepped down from in 1990 to focus more on vaccine research. Dr. Katz also served on the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices from 1982 to 1993.
He is survived by six children, two stepchildren and 17 grandchildren.