logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2020
42m 5s

The Great Vaccinator

Wnyc Studios
About this episode
Until now, the fastest vaccine ever made - for mumps - took four years. And while our current effort to develop a covid-19 vaccine involves thousands of people working around the clock, the mumps vaccine was developed almost exclusively by one person: Maurice Hilleman. Hilleman cranked out more than 40 other vaccines over the course of his career, including ... Show More
Up next
Oct 30
The Buried Bodies Case
In 1973, a massive manhunt in New York's Adirondack Mountains ended when police captured a man named Robert Garrow. And that’s when this story really gets started.In this episode, that we first released in 2016, we consider a string of barbaric crimes by a hated man, and the atto ... Show More
49m 28s
Oct 23
Octomom
First aired back in 2020, this episode follows the story of an octopus living one mile under the ocean as she performs a heroic act of heart and determination.In 2007, Bruce Robison’s robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs. It seemed like a small ... Show More
34m 17s
Oct 16
The Smell of Hell
Throughout human history, there’s been one element we’ve always associated with death. Just the smell of it is an alarm bell that says, “something here is dangerous.” But what if our noses have been wrong all along?In this episode of our series Viscera: Gripping Tales of the Huma ... Show More
43m 9s
Recommended Episodes
May 2022
38. Pfizer’s CEO on the Big Gamble That Brought Us the COVID Vaccine
Bapu Jena talks with Albert Bourla about his unusual path to the top, developing a life-saving vaccine in record time, and the second-hardest decision he made along the way. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use ... Show More
34m 18s
Apr 2021
The 50 Year Vaccine
There's a lot of misinformation going around about a "brand new" vaccine, but mRNA vaccines have been worked on since the 1970's. Luckily they were perfected just in time for the biggest crisis in modern history. Learn about how mRNA vaccines work and what one dedicated pediatric ... Show More
17m 17s
Apr 2021
How COVID vaccines are revolutionizing medicine | Adrian Hill
This past year, scientists racing to stop the novel coronavirus delivered vaccines at a pace and scale the world has never seen before. Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University's vaccine research institute, recounts how he and his team developed the AstraZeneca vaccine. He expl ... Show More
1h 6m
May 2020
To Fight a Virus, and Win
May 14, 1796. Edward Jenner puts a theory to the test: can contracting one disease save you from another? Jenner goes down in history as the man who brought us one of the greatest advances in modern medicine: the vaccine. Its discovery led to the eradication of smallpox, a virus ... Show More
26m 43s
Jul 2020
Why a Vaccine Won't Create Instant Immunity
An effective vaccine is seen as the world’s greatest hope for achieving some kind of return to normal, and the timeline for developing one has been sped up dramatically. But as hard as it’s going to be to make a vaccine quickly, once we do, we’ll have a new problem: Getting it to ... Show More
12m 36s
Sep 2020
A Conversation With a Covid-19 Vaccine Scientist
What does it feel like working on something that could save the world? CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks with Hanneke Schuitemaker, PhD, the Global Head of Vaccine Discovery and Translational Medicine at Janssen Pharmaceutica. She reflects on her work leadin ... Show More
15m 53s
Jun 2022
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman: The Vaccine Revolution
<p>The COVID-19 vaccine came out at warp speed because of the work of these two scientists.  For many years they had been investigating the secrets of messenger RNA (mRNA).  And when the pandemic began, their research was ready and waiting. On this episode you’ll hear Katalin Kar ... Show More
57m 48s