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Dr. Michiyaki Takahashi Jayanti: Google Doodle Celebrates Chickenpox Vaccine Pioneer’s 94th Birthday

February 17, 2022
Bharat Times

Today’s Google Doodle is painted by Tokyo-based artist Tatsuro Kiuchi. (Image: Google.com)

Takahashi’s vaccine has since been administered to millions of children around the world as an effective measure to prevent severe cases of the infectious viral disease and its transmission.

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Google Doodle Today: Google on Thursday celebrated the 94th birth anniversary of Japanese virologist Dr Michiyaki Takahashi with a doodle. Takahashi was the first to develop a vaccine against chickenpox. “Millions of children worldwide have been vaccinated as an effective measure to prevent severe cases of infectious viral disease and its transmission,” Google said. Illustrated by Tokyo-based guest artist Tatsuro Kiuchi, today’s doodle shows Dr. Takahashi researching and treating a child with smallpox.

(Image: Google.com)

Michiyaki Takahashi was born in Osaka, Japan in 1928. He earned his medical degree from Osaka University and joined the Microbial Disease Research Institute of Osaka University in 1959. After studying measles and polio virus, Dr. Takahashi accepted a research fellowship at Baylor College in the United States in 1963. It was during this time that his son developed a severe bout of chickenpox, which helped him to turn his expertise towards combating the highly contagious disease.

Dr. Takahashi returned to Japan in 1965 and began cultivating the live but weakened chickenpox virus in animal and human tissue. After only five years of development, it was ready for clinical trials. In 1974, Dr. Takahashi developed the first vaccine targeting the varicella virus that causes chickenpox. It was later subjected to rigorous research with immunosuppressed patients and proved to be extremely effective.

In 1986, Osaka University’s Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases began a rollout in Japan as the only varicella vaccine approved by the World Health Organization.

Takahashi’s life-saving vaccine was soon used in more than 80 countries. In 1994, he was appointed director of Osaka University’s Microbial Disease Study Group – a position he held until his retirement. Thanks to his innovations, millions of cases of chickenpox are prevented every year.

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