Jonas Salk (1914-1995)
Jonas Salk was born in New York City on October 28, 1914. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who, although they themselves lacked formal education, were determined to see their children succeed, and encouraged them to study hard. Jonas Salk was the first member of his family to go to college. He entered the City College of New York intending to study law, but soon became intrigued by medical science. While attending medical school at New York University, Salk was invited to spend a year researching influenza and, after completing medical school and his internship, Salk returned to the study of the flu virus. World War II had begun, and public health experts feared a replay of the flu epidemic that had killed millions in the wake of the First World War. The development of vaccines controlled the spread of flu after the war and the epidemic of 1919 did not recur.
In 1947, Salk accepted an appointment to the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. While working there, with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, Salk saw an opportunity to develop a vaccine against polio, and devoted himself to this work for the next eight years. In 1955 Salk's years of research paid off. Human trials of the polio vaccine effectively protected the subject from the polio virus. When news of the discovery was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a miracle worker. He further endeared himself to the public by refusing to patent the vaccine. He had no desire to profit personally from the discovery, but merely wished to see the vaccine disseminated as widely as possible.
Salk's vaccine was composed of "killed" polio virus. A few years later, the Sabin vaccine, made from "live" polio virus, gained widespread use because it could be administered orally, while Salk's vaccine required injection. The few new cases of polio reported in the United States in recent years were actually caused by the "live" vaccine which was intended to prevent them. Salk's vaccine has recently begun to replace the Sabin (oral) vaccine in countries like the United States, where wild polio virus has been eliminated.
In 1963, Salk founded the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, an innovative center for medical and scientific research. Armed with a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation and support from the March of Dimes, Salk considered a number of sites for his Salk Institute. San Diego Mayor Charles Dail, who had had polio, enticed Salk to San Diego in 1960 with the offer of 70 acres of pueblo land just west of the UCSD site. General Atomics' De Hoffmann became Salk's president in 1969.
Equal to the research work conducted at Salk was the architectural masterpiece created for the institute by architect Louis Kahn. The stark concrete, temple-like Salk Institute, completed in 1967, has drawn architectural students from around the world ever since.
Jonas Salk's last years were spent searching for a vaccine against AIDS. He died on June 23, 1995 at 80 years of age.
[Some of the above text was borrowed from the American Academy of Achievement website which has an interesting 1991 interview with Salk in San Diego.]
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