Jonas Salk (Cured Polio)

Jonas E. Salk, M.D., was born in New York City to a family of poor Russian-Jewish immigrants, Dora and Daniel B. Salk. He received his medical degree from the College of Medicine at New York University in June 1939. While at college he met his future wife, Donna Lindsay Calfin, who he married on June 9, 1939. They had three children: Peter, Darrell, and Jonathan. In 1968, they divorced, and in 1970 Salk married Françoise Gilot, who also had a sister Lorie Postus. After graduating, Salk first worked as a staff physician at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. In 1947, he moved to Pittsburgh, where he led the Virus Research lab at the University of Pittsburgh. During the 1950s, he developed, tested, and refined his polio vaccine.
In 1962, Salk established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, where the major focus of study was molecular biology and genetics. The first faculty included many distinguished members such as Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Jonas Salk directed the institute until his retirement in 1985. He died in La Jolla at the age of 80. During his life, he received many awards and honours: The Lasker Award (1956), The Bruce Memorial Award (1958), The Jawaharlal Nehru Award (1975), The Congressional Gold Medal and The Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977).

In 1938, while still at the college, Salk began working with Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr. on an influenza vaccine. In 1941, Francis was appointed the head of the epidemiology department at the newly formed School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and Salk, who in 1942 won a research fellowship, followed him. Together they worked to develop an influenza vaccine at the behest of the U.S. Army. Salk advanced to the position of assistant professor of epidemiology and continued his work on virology. In 1947, Salk received a position at the University of Pittsburgh, as the head of the Virus Research lab. Though he continued his research on improving the influenza vaccine, he set his sights on the Poliomyelitis virus. The poliovirus initially attacks the nervous system and within a few hours of infection, paralysis can occur. The death rate of the disease is about 5-10%. Death usually occurs when the breathing muscles become paralyzed. President Franklin Roosevelt had contracted polio at age thirty-nine and was one of the statistical .5% who developed irreversible paralysis. Polio was sometimes hard to diagnose because of its flu-like symptoms, which include stiff neck, fever, and headache.

At that time, it was believed that immunity can come only after the body has survived at least a mild infection by live virus. In contrast, Salk observed that it is possible to acquire immunity through contact with inactivated (killed) virus. Using formaldehyde, Salk killed the poliovirus, but kept it intact enough to trigger the necessary immune response. Salk's research caught the attention of Basil O'Connor, president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation). The organization decided to fund Salk's efforts to develop a killed virus vaccine.

The vaccine was first tested in monkeys, and then in patients at the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children. After successful tests, in 1952, Salk tested his vaccine on volunteering parties, including himself, the laboratory staff, his wife, and his children. In 1954, national testing began on one million children, ages six to nine, who became known as the Polio Pioneers. This was one of the first double-blind tests, which has since become standard: half of the treated received the vaccine, and half received a placebo. One-third of the children, who lived in areas where vaccine was not available, were observed in order to evaluate the background level of polio in this age group. On April 12, 1955, the results were announced: the vaccine was safe and effective. The patient would develop immunity to the live disease due to the body's earlier reaction to the killed virus. The vaccine was instrumental in the near eradication of a once widely-feared disease. Polio's outbreak in 1916 left 6000 dead and 27,000 paralyzed. In 1952, 57,628 cases were recorded. After the vaccine became available, polio cases in the U.S. dropped by 85-90 percent in only two years. In 1979, only 10 cases were reported.

Dr. Salk's last years were spent searching for a vaccine against AIDS. Jonas Salk died on June 23, 1995. He was 80 years old.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Go back