Pearl Kendrick

Pearl Louella Kendrick (August 24, 1890 – October 8, 1980) was an American bacteriologist known for co-developing the first successful whooping cough vaccine alongside fellow Michigan Department of Public Health scientist Grace Eldering and chemist Loney Gordon in the 1930s. In the decades after the initial pertussis vaccine rollout, Kendrick contributed to the promotion of international vaccine standards in Latin America and the Soviet Union. Kendrick and her colleagues also developed a 3-in-1 shot for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (also called the DTP vaccine), which was initially released in 1948.

Early life and education

Pearl Louella Kendrick was born on August 24, 1890, in Wheaton, Illinois to Ella and Milton Kendrick. Kendrick would then suffer from whooping cough at the age of three. She graduated high school in 1908 and attended Greenville College for a year before transferring to Syracuse University. In 1914, she received her B.S. in Zoology from Syracuse. Kendrick worked as a teacher in upstate New York, but continued her scientific education by studying bacteriology with Hans Zinsser at Columbia University in 1917. Kendrick graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1932 while simultaneously working at the Michigan Department of Public Health as an associate director and chief.

Whooping cough vaccine research

Kendrick moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan and became focused on researching whooping cough, a contagious disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis that was responsible for killing an estimated 6000 people annually in the U.S., almost entirely children.