BOSTON - Dr. Thomas H. Weller, a Harvard professor whose research on the polio virus earned him and two others a Nobel prize in 1954, has died. He was 93.

Weller died in his sleep Saturday at his home in Needham, his son said.

He and two Children's Hospital colleagues, John F. Enders and Frederick C. Robbins, shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of a way to grow the polio virus in safe tissue cultures, leading to the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines against polio. Their work also helped pave the way for the development of vaccines for other viral disease such as measles and chicken pox and proved to be a crucial aid to cancer research.

Weller also was an expert in tropical diseases and at the time of his death was the Richard Pearson Strong professor of tropical medicine emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health.