Stanley Plotkin is a 93-year-old American physician and virologist known as the "godfather of vaccines"[1][2][4]. He played a key role in the development of the rubella vaccine at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia in the 1960s[1][2][3]. This vaccine, based on the RA 27/3 virus strain and the WI-38 cell line, was released in 1969 and led to the eradication of rubella in the US in 2005, according to the CDC[1]. Plotkin was also involved in vaccines against rabies, rotavirus, cytomegalovirus, varicella and polio[1][2][3][7]. He worked at the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service from 1957 to 1960 and was a member of the Wistar research team from 1960 to 1991[1][2][3]. He is a professor emeritus at the Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant to the vaccine industry[2][7].