Ernest William Goodpasture created a means of culturing viruses in the laboratory without contamination from foreign bacteria. This research was instrumental in the development of most of the vaccines and inoculations used in medicine today. Additionally, Goodpasture developed an alternate way of staining specimens for examination under the microscope. He also pursued research interests in varying other fields of medicine, and identified a progressive and rare immune system illness that became known as Goodpasture's Syndrome.

Goodpasture was born in Montgomery County, Tennessee. He left home to study medicine in 1909, and received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. He then served as the Rockefeller Fellow in Pathology until 1914. Goodpasture returned to practicing medicine and served his residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston from 1915 to 1917. In 1917, he was offered a professorship at Harvard University, but only remained there for three years. Shortly thereafter, Goodpasture was appointed chair of...