Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk (1914–1995) was an American physician and virologist who developed the first safe and effective vaccine against polio. Born in New York City to immigrant parents, he chose medical research over private practice, hoping to help humanity on a larger scale. After working on influenza vaccines, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1947, where he led years of polio research at a time when the disease paralyzed thousands of children each year. His turning point came with a vaccine made from inactivated virus, tested in 1954 in one of the largest medical field trials in history, involving more than a million children. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was announced safe and effective, and polio cases fell dramatically. Salk chose not to patent the vaccine, famously asking, “Could you patent the sun?” He later founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California.
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Pioneers of Vaccines and Antibiotics
Edward Jenner introduced vaccination against smallpox in 1796, using material from cowpox. Louis Pasteur developed vaccines against anthrax and rabies and proposed extending the word vaccine to all such protections in Jenner's honor. Paul Ehrlich, seeking a 'magic bullet' against disease, developed Salvarsan (1910), often called the first modern chemotherapeutic drug. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, and Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, announced in 1955, was never patented.
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