The hepatitis B vaccine

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Who

Baruch Samuel Blumberg, an American Jewish physician and Nobel laureate, who discovered the hepatitis B antigen

When

1967–1969

Where

Philadelphia, United States

Baruch Blumberg identified the hepatitis B virus antigen in the 1960s, work that earned him the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine and led directly to the first vaccine against the virus. Blumberg, who came from an observant American Jewish family, gave the world the first vaccine shown to prevent a human cancer (liver cancer).

Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.