Enders, John Franklin - West Hartford, CT

John Franklin Enders
West Hartford, CT 
N 41° 45.847 W 072° 45.343

Grave Marker

Setting

The grave of Nobel Laurate John Franklin Enders is located in Fairview Cemetery in West Hartford, CT.  It is marked by a simple, granite, horizontal, ground level marker which is inscribed:

JOHN FRANKLIN ENDERS

NOBEL LAURATE 1954

FEB. 10, 1897 SEPT. 8, 1985

THEN ALL ON EARTH THAT DEATH HAS LEFT BEHIND

WILL BE THE MERRY PART OF ME WITHIN YOUR MIND

HANS ZINSSER

John Franklin Enders shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Medicine the discovery of the ability to grow the of poliomyelitis viruses in various types of tissue cultures. This discovery was essential for the later development of the vaccines by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin that virtually eliminated polio.

John Franklin Enders was born in West Hartford, Connecticut on February 10, 1897. He was born in West Hartford, CT on February 10, 1897. He joined the United States Army Air Corps during World War I as a flight instructor and a lieutenant. Upon discharge he attended Yale University and obtained a a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1930 and then became a member of the faculty at Children's Hospital in Boston.

In 1949, John Enders and his colleagues Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Chapman Robbins isolated the poliomyelitis from tissue cultures. A discovery for which they later were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. In 1954, Enders began research to develop a measles vaccine. An effective measles vaccine was announced in 1961.