He graduated from high school at the age of 15 and then entered the City College of New York. Although he originally intended to pursue law, he became interested in medicine and altered his career path, graduating with a degree in science in His intention was not to practice medicine, however; he wanted to be a medical researcher.
Toward the end of his medical education he began to work with Thomas Francis Jr. Salk received his MD in and, after completing his internship at Mt.
There he rejoined Francis who had since moved to Michigan and spent six years researching the influenzavirus and developing a flu vaccine, work largely supported by the U. The vaccine that they ultimately developed in was a killed-virus vaccine: it contained a formalin-killed strain of the influenzavirus that could not cause the disease but did induce antibodies able to ward off future viral attacks. Francis and Salk were among the pioneers of killed-virus vaccines.
Up to that time attenuated weakened live viruses were used to produce vaccines. He devoted his efforts to creating a first-class research environment and to publishing scientific papers on a variety of topics, including poliovirus. His work drew the attention of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis now the March of Dimes , and he was invited to participate in a research program sponsored by the foundation.
He agreed and took up his assignment of typing polioviruses. In the National Foundation typing program confirmed that there were three types of poliovirus. He also believed that it would be less dangerous than a live vaccine: if the vaccine contained only dead virus, then it could not accidentally cause polio in those inoculated.
One difficulty, however, was that large quantities of poliovirus were needed to produce a killed-virus vaccine because a killed virus will not grow in the body after administration the way a live virus will. In John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins had discovered that poliovirus could be grown in laboratory tissue cultures of non-nerve tissue earning them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in The work of Enders and his colleagues paved the way for Salk, for it provided a method of growing the virus without injecting live monkeys.
Salk developed methods for growing large quantities of the three types of polioviruses on cultures of monkey kidney cells. He then killed the viruses with formaldehyde. When injected into monkeys, the vaccine protected them against paralytic poliomyelitis.
In Salk began testing the vaccine in humans, starting with children who had already been infected with the virus. He measured their antibody levels before vaccination and then was excited to see that the levels had been raised significantly by the vaccine.
In a massive controlled field trial was launched, sponsored by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Almost two million U. In other areas of the country children who did not receive any vaccine were carefully observed. Using formaldehyde, he killed the polio virus but kept it intact enough to trigger the body's response.
On July 2, , Salk tried a refined vaccine on children who'd already had polio and recovered. After the vaccination, their antibodies increased. He then tried it on volunteers who had not had polio, including himself, his wife, and their children. The volunteers all produced antibodies, and none got sick. A nationwide testing of the vaccine was launched in April with the mass inoculation of school children. The results were amazing -- percent prevention -- and Salk was praised to the skies.
But suddenly, some cases of the disease were caused by the vaccine and 11 people died. All testing was halted. It seemed that people's hopes were dashed until investigators found that the disease-causing vaccine all came from one poorly made batch at one drug company.
Higher production standards were adopted and vaccinations resumed, with over 4 million given by August The impact was dramatic: In there were 28, cases of polio; in , 14,; in , 5, By , 90 other countries used Salk's vaccine. Another researcher, Albert Sabin, didn't think Salk's killed-virus vaccine was strong enough. Salk died of heart failure on June 23, , at his home in La Jolla, California.
With his groundbreaking vaccine, Salk had earned his place in medical history. He will always be remembered as the man who stopped polio. Salk was married to social worker Donna Lindsay from to The couple had three sons together: Peter, Darrell and Jonathan. In , he married artist Francoise Gilot, who had previously been romantically involved with Pablo Picasso. We strive for accuracy and fairness.
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