The extraordinary story of the man who risked his career to create vaccines against our worst diseases
In March 1968, biologist Leonard Hayflick visited the basement of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia. He was seeking a set of 375 vials, each bearing the code WI-38. Once found, he placed them in a nitrogen-cooled container and then hid them in a friend’s house. He informed no one at Wistar, his former employer, of his actions.
A few days later, Hayflick transported the vials to Stanford University, where he had just been made professor of medical microbiology. There he started to sell them to drug companies.
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Hayflick achieved great things but let his pigheadedness lead him into trouble
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