Radhika Bajaj of Gettysburg, other Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine master of biomedical sciences students, participate in documentary screeening, discussion

2018 Feb 14

Radhika Bajaj of Gettysburg and other master of biomedical sciences students at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine's Doylestown campus recently attended a movie screening of "HILLEMAN - A Perilous Quest to Save the World's Children." The screening was hosted at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute by the Hepatitis B Foundation, which regularly provides educational events for the community and its partners. The "Hilleman" screening was part of the foundation's effort to improve awareness of vaccines. After the event, the film's director and producer, Donald Rayne Mitchell, joined Paul A. Offit, M.D., chief of the division of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in a panel discussion.

"HILLEMAN - A Perilous Quest to Save the World's Children" is considered "the crown jewel" of The Vaccine Makers Project, produced by Medical History Pictures and sponsored by the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The project seeks to engage audiences in stories of vaccine science and development.

Maurice Hilleman was a microbiologist who developed more than 40 vaccines, of which eight are routinely recommended in current vaccine schedules -- those for measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia and Haemophilus influenzae bacteria. He also played a role in the discovery of cold-producing adenoviruses, hepatitis viruses and the cancer-causing virus, SV40.