Microbiologist helped develop virus vaccine

Hepatitis B serum among biggest medical advances.

Irving Millman, a microbiologist who played an instrumental role in developing the hepatitis B vaccine, an innovation recognized as one of the most important medical advances of the latter 20th century and one that has saved millions of lives, died April 17 in Washington. He was 88.

The cause was complications from internal bleeding, said his daughter Diane Millman.

Hepatitis B is an infectious virus that can lead to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and a deadly form of cancer.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Mr. Millman was the only trained immunologist on a team of hepatitis researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Cen- ter in Philadelphia. Leading the team was Baruch Blumberg, a future Nobel laureate.

Mr. Blumberg had spent the previous decade collecting blood samples around the world for the study of infectious disease. Using the serum from an Australian aborigine, he identified the hepatitis B virus. He died last year at 85.

Once Mr. Blumberg had isolated the virus, the challenge was to halt its transmission from one person to another. Mr. Millman’s arrival at the Fox Chase laboratory in 1967, Blumberg wrote in an essay, was “perhaps the most important factor” in making the breakthrough discovery.

Without Mr. Millman, Mr. Blumberg told the Jewish Exponent in 1993, “we couldn’t have made that vaccine, no question about it.” Survivors include two children, Diane Millman of Washington and Steven Millman of Boston, and five grandchildren.