STEVE INSKEEP, host: And let's take a moment now to remember a man who dedicated his life to developing life-saving drugs.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Robert Chanock was renowned for his work as a virologist, creating vaccines for diseases that most often affected children. The Washington Post reports that Chanock died last week after battling Alzheimer's disease.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Chanock was the first to identify a virus known as RSV. It causes a serious respiratory infection in babies, killing at least 200,000 each year.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: He first identified the virus in the 1950s and worked to develop a vaccine to prevent it for the next half century. The vaccine is currently in clinical trials. He also identified the virus that causes croup in babies and proved that walking pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Robert Chanock was born in Chicago in 1924, and he served as chief of a laboratory at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades. When he died, he was 86.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: You're listening to MORNING EDITION, from NPR News.
A renowned virologist who identified the pathogen that causes life-threatening pneumonia in infants has died, according to The Washington Post. Robert Chanock was 86.