Leslie Harold Collier was a scientist responsible for developing a freeze-drying method to produce a more heat stable smallpox vaccine

Smallpox vaccine

The smallpox vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed. The process of vaccination was discovered by Edward Jenner in 1796, who acted upon his observation that milkmaids who caught the cowpox virus did not catch smallpox...

 in the late 1940s.
Collier added a key component, peptone, a soluble protein, to the process. This protected the virus, enabling the production of a heat-stable vaccine in powdered form. Previously, smallpox vaccines would become ineffective after 1–2 days at ambient temperature.

The development of his vaccine production method played a large role in enabling the World Health Organization

World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...

to initiate its global smallpox eradication campaign in 1967.

Publications

Collier was a co-editor of the eighth edition and editor-in-chief of the five-volume ninth edition of the “microbiologist’s bible”, Topley and Wilson’s Principles of Bacteriology and Immunity (now Topley and Wilson’s Microbiology and Microbial Infections), which won the Society of Authors’ 1998 award in the advanced edited book category.
He was also joint editor of Developments in Antiviral Chemotherapy (1980).
He was a co-author of Human Virology (1993).