I loved the film The Adromeda Strain. They tried to resurrect the concept in a 2008 mini-series that if I recall correctly did do do well.
For those that haven't seen it before see below.
Wiki
For those that haven't seen it before see below.
Wiki
When a military satellite returns to Earth, a recovery team is dispatched to retrieve it; during a live radio communication with their base, the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, the government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation.
The Wildfire scientific team studying the unknown strain is composed of Dr. Jeremy Stone, bacteriologist specialist; Dr. Peter Leavitt, disease pathology; Dr. Charles Burton, infection vectors specialist; and Dr. Mark Hall, M.D., surgeon, biochemistry and pH specialist. Hall is the "odd man", since he is the only one without a spouse. The Robertson Odd Man Hypothesis[1] states that unmarried men are capable of carrying out the best, most dispassionate decisions during crises and he is given the only key that can disarm the self-destruct mechanism. A fifth scientist, Dr. Christian Kirke, electrolytes specialist, was unavailable for duty because of appendicitis.