| Jonas Salk - The Virologist |
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Jonas Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Russian-Jewish immigrant families. Although they themselves did not have much formal education, they were determined to see their children succeed. While attending medical school at New York University, he stood out from his peers not just because of his academic prowess, but because he chose to do medical research instead of becoming a physician.
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Early life
Jonas Salk was born in New York City on October 28, 1914. His parents, Daniel and Dora Salk, were from Russian-Jewish immigrant families, and did not receive extensive formal education. According to historian David Oshinsky, Salk grew up in the "Jewish immigrant culture" of New York. He had two younger brothers, Herman and Lee. The family moved from East Harlem to the Bronx, with some time spent in Queens.
Joining fight against polio
The worst disease of the postwar era
As the fear of polio increased each year, funds to combat it increased from $1.8 million to $67 million by 1955. Research continued during those years, but, writes O'Neill, "everything scientists believed about polio at first was wrong, leading them down many blind alleys... furthermore, most researchers were experimenting with highly dangerous live vaccines. In one test six children were killed and three left crippled."
"This was the situation when young Jonas Salk, a medical doctor in charge of a virology laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, decided to use the safer killed virus", writes O'Neill. Despite a general lack of enthusiasm for this approach, O'Connor backed Salk handsomely. After successful tests on laboratory animals, it next had to be tested on human beings. "Who would take the risk?" author Dennis Denenberg asked. "Dr. Jonas Salk did ... along with his wife and children, who also allowed themselves to be human guinea pigs." In November, 1953, at a conference in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he said, "I will be personally responsible for the vaccine." He announced that his wife and three sons had been among the first volunteers to be inoculated with his vaccine.
Becoming a public figure
Celebrity versus privacy
Salk meeting Ben Gurion on a visit to Jerusalem in May, 1959
Salk preferred not to have his career as a scientist affected by too much personal attention, as he had always tried to remain independent and private in his research and life. But this proved to be impossible. "Young man, a great tragedy has befallen you - you've lost your anonymity", the late television personality Ed Murrow said to Salk shortly after the onslaught of media attention. When Murrow asked him, "Who owns this patent?", Salk replied, "No one. Could you patent the sun?"
Author Jon Cohen noted that "Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy. As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public's eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board, and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer... and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder, as though some of the stardust might rub off."
AIDS vaccine work
Beginning in the mid 1980s, Salk also engaged in research to develop a vaccine for another, more recent plague, AIDS. To further this research, he co-founded The Immune Response Corporation with Kevin Kimberlin, to search for a vaccine, and patented Remune, an immune-based therapy. The AIDS vaccine project was discontinued in 2007, twelve years after Jonas Salk's death in 1995.
Although many advances have been made in treating AIDS, "the world still waited for the miracle vaccine the conqueror of polio had sought", wrote historian Alan Axelrod.
Personal life
Salk's grave at El Camino
The day after his graduation from medical school, Salk married Donna Lindsay, a master's candidate at the New York College of Social Work. David Oshinsky writes that her father, Elmer Lindsay, "a wealthy Manhattan dentist, viewed Salk as a social inferior, several cuts below Donna's former suitors." Eventually, her father agreed to the marriage on two conditions: first, Salk must wait until he could be listed as an official M.D. on the wedding invitations, and second, he must improve his "rather pedestrian status" by giving himself a middle name."
They had three children: Peter, Darrell, and Jonathan Salk. In 1968, they divorced, and in 1970 Salk married Francoise Gilot, the former mistress of Pablo Picasso.
Jonas Salk died at the age of 80 on June 23, 1995 in La Jolla and was buried at El Camino Memorial Park San Diego
References - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk
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