Leone N. Farrell

Farrell was born in Monkland, Ontario in 1904 and moved to Toronto as a child. She attended Parkdale Collegiate Institute, earning academic prizes in English and history and a science scholarship.[2] She completed her MA on the chemistry of fermentation in 1929 at the University of Toronto.[3] She obtained a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Toronto in 1933, which was rare for women at the time.[3][4]

Farrell studied yeasts found in honey at the National Research Council of Canada[4] and worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine[3] following her PhD. She was recruited to Toronto's Connaught Research Laboratories in 1934. At Connaught, she worked on a team focused on developing toxoid vaccines for staphylococcus.[3] Upon turning her attention to the pertussis vaccine, she developed a method of rocking bacterial cultures to stimulate growth of the bacteria and increase yield.[5]

She began studying dysentery toxin in 1941 for use as a vaccine due to the wartime rise in infections.[6] In 1943, Connaught undertook a research program to increase penicillin production for the war effort and Farrell identified a strain of penicillium that allowed increased yield of antibiotic.[7] Following the war, she continued her efforts to improve penicillin production.[8]

In 1953, she and her team undertook the challenging task of producing live virus for the polio vaccine in bulk quantities.[9] After months of experimentation, she adapted her rocking method (now termed the Toronto Method)[3][10] to greatly increase the yield of live virus.[4][5] The live polio virus was then shipped to the United States to be killed for use in Jonas Salk's field trials,[9][10] as the Toronto team was the only one that could produce the virus in large enough quantities.[3][4][5] When Salk travelled to Toronto to meet the team, Farrell was not allowed to attend the reception because it was held in a room reserved for men only.[2]

A prototype of Farrell's "rocking bottle" equipment was later included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute about polio.[11]

Farrell continued to lead her team, making improvements to the vaccine and its use, as well as developing a method of increasing the production of penicillin.[2][12] She conducted research and wrote scientific papers about diseases and vaccines, and retired in 1969.[4][13] Her colleagues describe her as "a very serious person" possessed of "knowledge and mental fertility"; "She was a classic researcher and disciplined in her work to the extent that she knew you laid out a plan and followed it carefully for things to get done."[5]

Farrell was remembered as 'very much a lady' by her colleagues[5] and as "a thoroughly charming and pleasant person" by her family.[14] She never married, and lived by herself. Near the end of her life she suffered from dementia;[2] she died in hospital in the presence of family in 1986.[14][15]