Jonas Edward Salk - Discoverer of the First Polio Vaccine

 In 1952, Jonas Salk, an American microbiologist, developed an anti-polio vaccine, everyone was convinced that as soon as he got registered his vaccine in Patent office, he will become billionaire in few days by the world over royalty of the vaccine. When someone asked him why he was not getting patented his vaccine. The answer was, can you patent sunlight? I did not make this vaccine to make money. Rather, it is designed to save the future of millions of children and earn the prayers of their heirs and anyone who seeks the rights to produce this vaccine on an industrial scale, my first condition would be that these rights be in the name of every inhabitant of the planet, not in the name of a single individual or company. Thus, after 68 years, his madness saves every region of earth from the polio virus.

Who Was Jonas Salk?

Jonas Salk was born October 28, 1914, in New York City. In 1942 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, he became part of a team that was developing a vaccine against the flu. In 1947, he was appointed as the head of the Virus Research Lab in the University of Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh he began to develop the techniques that would lead to a vaccine to wipe out the most frightening menace of the time: paralytic poliomyelitis.

How Jonas Salk developed Polio vaccine?

Contrary to popular scientific opinion at the time, Salk believed that his vaccine could immunize without the risk of infecting a patient. Salk administered the vaccine to non-polio volunteers, including himself, his laboratory assistant, wife, and their children. All developed antibodies against poliomyelitis and had no negative reactions to the vaccine.

In 1954, nationwide testing began on one million children between the ages of six and nine who became known as the polio pioneers. On April 12, 1955, the results were announced: the vaccine was safe and effective. Two years before the vaccine became widely available, the average number of polio cases in the United States was over 45,000. By 1962, that number had fallen to 910. Famous as a miracle worker, Salk did never patent a vaccine or made any money from its discovery, preferring to spread as widely as possible.

Jonas Salk’s other Contributions

Salk’s second triumph was founding “The Salk Institute for Biological Studies” in La Jolla in 1963. Salk spent his last years of life searching for a vaccine against AIDS.

He died on June 23, 1995 at the age of 80 in La Jolla, California. His life’s philosophy is clearly reflected by his famous quote: “Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."

Jonas Salk’s other quotations:

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.

Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.