Emil C. Gotschlich

Emil Claus Gotschlich (January 17, 1935 – February 14, 2023) was an American physician-scientist, who was professor emeritus at the Rockefeller University. He was best known for his development of the first meningitis vaccine in 1970.

Early life and education Emil Gotschlich was born in Bangkok, Thailand, on January 17, 1935, to German parents, Emil Clemens Gotschlich, a physician in private practice in Thailand and his wife Magdalene, née Holst, who were both physicians. His grandfather, Emil Carl Anton Constantin Gotschlich was a prominent German academic physician, who specialized in cholera and tropical diseases and had been a student of Carl Flügge and a colleague of Max Joseph von Pettenkofer and Robert Koch. His great uncle, Felix Gotschlich had isolated Vibrio cholerae in 1906.

In 1959, Gotschlich graduated from the New York University School of Medicine. He interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York and in 1960 joined The Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Bacteriology and Immunology under Rebecca Lancefield and Maclyn McCarty. In 1970, the vaccine was approved for use in military recruits. Returning to Rockefeller he developed a vaccine against Meningococcus group A. He was also involved in research on Neisseria gonorrhoeae and streptococcal infection. In 2001, he was involved in a committee that evaluated the plan of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the US Army's anthrax vaccine. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine.