Salk, Jonas

In the 1950s, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) worked on polio vaccines. Salk used inactivated polio virus, whereas Sabin developed a live form of polio virus. 

The original polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk (for whom the Salk Institute in LaJolla is named). It is a "killed" virus. However, over the years it was found that this did not always impart a complete immunity. The Sabin vaccine contains an attenuated virus. It is interesting to note that the Sabin vaccine can cause an active infection in a rare number of cases. 

Jonas Salk (1915-1995) begins testing a polio vaccine comprised of a mixture of killed viruses. 

The first non dye-based drug company was in fact Hungarian. Gideon Richter is still famed for its production of steroid-based drugs. Another, Chinoin, is part of Sanofi. The Soviet Union s Jonas Salk, Ilya Sabin, produced Sabin drops simultaneously with Salk s polio vaccine. Countries such as Finland adopted the Sabin drops in preference to Salk s injection. 

An inactivated trivalent vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was licensed for use in 1955. In 1987, an enhanced-potency inactivated poho vaccine (IPV) was introduced, and it has replaced the original inactivated vaccine. A live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) was developed by Albert Sabin in 1962. OPV was the primary immunizing agent for poliovirus infection. Widespread OPV use is responsible for eradication of wild-type polio in most of the world. However, with no poliovirus circulation in the United States for years, IPV is the recommended vaccine for the primary series and booster dose for children. OPV will continue to be used in the areas of the world that have circulating pohovirus. The CEX7 maintains a stockpile of OPV to be used only in case of an outbreak. ... 

That infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), a previously dreaded infectious disease, has been de facto eliminated in Germany and many other countries, is thanks to the vaccine developed by Jonas E. Salk in 1954. In 1961, West Germany had stiU 4.461 recorded cases of polio following the outbreak of an epidemic. However, one year later, after an important campaign under the slogan Oral vaccination is sweet, polio is cruel , only 300 new cases of polio were registered. 

On 1st February 1951 Flenrietta Lacks, who was suffering from cervical cancer, had - without her consent - samples of her cervix removed at the Johns Hopkins Hospital In Baltimore. She deceased on 4th October of the same year. A subset of her malignant cells was characterised and found to divide beyond the normal limit. From a single of these cells, researchers were able to establish the first Immortal human cell line, which they labelled HeLa-cells, in memory of the donor. From 1952 right up to the present time, this cell line is used worldwide for research purposes, as e.g. for the development of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, which underwent clinical trials already in 1954. 

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