History of the Department

​The Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology of the Harvard Medical School has a long and distinguished history of making significant contributions to an understanding of the fundamental causes, means of prevention, and treatment of disease by studying the molecular bases of pathogenic viral and bacterial infections; and by expanding the basic understanding of bacterial viruses, fungi and animal cells. The Department follows in the rich tradition of such eminent alumni and members of the faculty as Hans Zinsser, John Enders, Bernard Davis, and Bernard Fields. Zinsser's groundbreaking work on rickettsial diseases led to an understanding of recurrent typhus, named Brill-Zinsser disease in his honor.

Enders, a student of Zinsser, received his doctorate in Microbiology from Harvard Medical School in 1930 and served on the faculty for 37 years. His research first led to the refinement of tissue culture techniques for the study of viruses in vitro, and then, to the cultivation of polio, measles, and mumps viruses in non-nervous tissues. Enders' seminal work paved the way for the development of the polio, measles and mumps vaccines and earned him the Nobel Prize. Bernard Davis expanded our understanding of the role of antibiotics and their ability to kill bacteria. His work and the work of Luigi Gorini on streptomycin helped elucidate how this drug worked as a treatment of tuberculosis. Bernard Fields' work expanded our knowledge of the structure and genetics of animal viruses in relation to their dissemination and replication in the human host.

More recent work in the Department has led to the development of new approaches for making vaccines, new vaccine candidates for cholera, antiviral strategies for herpes simplex virus and general immune therapies for viral infections. In addition, studies of SIV pathogenesis in monkeys serve as the best animal model for AIDS and have led to observations suggesting that a vaccine may become feasible and that certain therapeutic approaches are promising.

The Department honors the legacies of Zinsser, Enders, Davis, and Fields by continuing to advance the field of microbiology, thereby providing new tools to understand and eradicate disease. The scourge of emerging diseases, of which AIDS is perhaps the most poignant and most virulent example, illustrates the continued relevance of studying the molecular biology and genetics of microbial agents as well as the critical need to further explain how new agents evolve and cause disease.