Jonas Salk

Jonas Edward Salk was born on October 28, 1914, in New York City, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Poland. Growing up in the East Bronx, he showed exceptional academic ability from an early age, entering the City College of New York at age fifteen. He went on to earn his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine in 1939.

After completing his internship and residency, Salk joined the University of Michigan, where he worked on influenza vaccines with Thomas Francis Jr. during World War II. This experience with inactivated virus preparations shaped his approach to vaccine development. In 1947, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh, where he directed the Virus Research Laboratory and turned his attention to poliomyelitis, a disease that paralyzed tens of thousands of children each year across the United States.

Salk's central insight was that an inactivated, or killed, poliovirus could stimulate immunity without causing disease. Working through the early 1950s with funding from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, his team developed a vaccine using formaldehyde to inactivate all three strains of the poliovirus. In 1952, he conducted early trials, including administering the vaccine to himself, his wife, and their three children.

The pivotal test came in 1954, when the largest clinical trial in American history was organized, involving nearly two million children known as Polio Pioneers. On April 12, 1955, Thomas Francis announced at the University of Michigan that the vaccine was safe, potent, and effective. The news was celebrated across the country. Salk became a national hero almost overnight.

Salk deliberately chose not to patent the vaccine, famously asking in a television interview who owned the patent, answering that it belonged to the people. He estimated that patenting it would have cost several hundred million dollars in royalties.

In 1963, Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which became a leading center for fundamental research in biology and medicine. In his later years, he devoted considerable effort to the search for a vaccine against HIV.

Jonas Salk died on June 23, 1995, in La Jolla, California, leaving a legacy that had largely eliminated polio in the developed world.