In Memoriam: Albert Z. Kapikian, MD, 1930-2014

With the death of Albert Zaven Kapikian, aged 83 years, on 24 February 2014, the infectious diseases community lost a treasured colleague, and the world lost a major scientific contributor to the great era of viral disease discovery of the mid-20th century. In the 1950s, medical virology began to flourish, when it was learned that viruses could be propagated in tissue culture. The next 2 decades saw the discovery of most medically important human viruses known today and the development and licensure of vaccines against them. Millions of children began receiving immunizations each year, resulting in marked reductions in morbidity and mortality due to diseases such as polio and measles. At the forefront of this research was the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases (LID) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Viral disease research needed curious and creative young medical scientists willing to learn the novel techniques that enabled the discovery of infectious disease agents. Al Kapikian was just such a person when he joined the LID in 1957. At that time, the LID was full of visionary men of science, including Joseph A. Bell and Robert J. Huebner, Al’s early mentors. Robert M. Chanock, a whiz kid protégé of Albert Sabin, had just joined the LID [1]; he became Al’s lifelong friend and collaborator. The discoveries made by these men and their NIH colleagues, among them Robert Purcell, reflected the prodigious output of a close-knit, restlessly energetic research team. For nearly 6 decades, Al’s discoveries and advances resulted in a steady stream of >450 publications and >60 patents. Notably, he and his colleagues identified the first known norovirus [2] and hepatitis A virus [3], using the novel technique of immune electron microscopy. Al and collaborators went on to characterize many human gastrointestinal viruses, including noroviruses, hepatitis Avirus, and rotavirus subtypes. He also contributed to defining the disease then known as non-A–non-B hepatitis, eventually helping to characterize hepatitis viruses C and E as the major causes, respectively, of its parenterallytransmitted and enterically-transmitted forms [4,5]. Al also helped characterize respiratory diseases caused by agents such as respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza viruses, and rhinoviruses, discovering in the process new viruses associated with the common cold. He trained, mentored, and influenced numerous scientists who went on to great accomplishments and who, in turn, trained and inspired many others. This lineage resulted in a prominent, multigenerational scientific family whose members were, without exception, devoted to their mentor. Of all his accomplishments, Al is perhaps best known for his decades-long quest to develop the first rotavirus vaccine. The intent was to use the vaccine to help prevent many of the approximately 50 000 rotavirus-associated hospitalizations and 20–40 deaths among millions of US children infected annually. Called Rotashield (Wyeth Laboratories), the vaccine—a live rhesus rotavirus tetravalent reassortant containing distinct VP7 genes representing the 4 predominant human serotypes— was licensed in 1998 for all US infants. Al’s focus was not just on US children, however. Each year, rotaviruses killed 500 000 to 1 million children globally, mostly in developing countries. Simultaneously with rotavirus vaccine development and licensure in the United States, Al and others were working tirelessly with philanthropic organizations to bring the new vaccine into global use and thereby stop a major childhood killer. In 1998, this goal seemed imminent. However, in 1999, after only 9 months of use in the United States, Rotashield was withdrawn from the US market when provisional postlicensure data and controversial public health decision-making processes linked it to postvaccination intussusception [6]. Subsequent analyses suggested that the intussusception risk was minimal or, arguably, even nonexistent and that the benefits of Rotashield vaccination likely outweighed a very low risk of hospitalization or death from Received and accepted 16 January 2015; electronically published 2 March 2015. Correspondence: Anthony S. Fauci, MD, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bldg 31, Rm 7A-03, 31 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892 (afauci@niaid.nih.gov). TheJournalof InfectiousDiseases 2015;211:1199–1201 Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2015. This work is written by (a) USGovernment employee(s) and is in the public domain in theUS. DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiv034