Background

Jonas Edward Salk was born on October 28, 1914, in New York City, New York, United States to the family of Orthodox Jewish-Polish immigrants from the Russian Empire as the eldest of three sons. His father, Daniel B. Salk, born in Vilkmergė, Lithuania, was a garment worker, who designed lace collars and cuffs and enjoyed sketching in his spare time. He and his wife, Dora Press, born in Minsk, Belarus, encouraged their son's academic talents. Salk had two brothers, Herman and Lee.

Education

Jonas Salk attended Townsend Harris High School for the gifted. There, young Salk was both highly motivated and high achieving, graduating at the age of fifteen and enrolling in the legal faculty of the City College of New York. Ever curious, he attended some science courses and quickly decided to switch fields. Salk graduated with a bachelor's degree in science in chemistry in 1933, at the age of nineteen, and went on to New York University's School of Medicine. Initially, he scraped by on money his parents had borrowed for him; after the first year, however, scholarships and fellowships paid his way. In his senior year, Salk met the man with whom he would collaborate on some of the most important work of his career, Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr. On June 7, 1939, Salk was awarded his Doctor of Medicine. He did his postgraduate work at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of Thomas Francis.

Career

After graduation, Salk continued working with Francis, and concurrently began a two-year internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Upon completing his internship, Salk accepted a National Research Council fellowship and moved to the University of Michigan to join Doctor Francis, who had been heading up Michigan's department of epidemiology since the previous year. Working on behalf of the United States Army, the team strove to develop a flu vaccine. Their goal was a "killed-virus" vaccine - able to kill the live flu viruses in the body, while simultaneously producing antibodies that could fight off future invaders of the same type, thus producing immunity. By 1943, Salk and Francis had developed a formalin-killed-virus vaccine, effective against both type A and B influenza viruses, and were in a position to begin clinical trials.

In 1946, Salk was appointed assistant professor of epidemiology at Michigan. Around this time he extended his research to cover not only viruses and the body's reaction to them but also their epidemic effects in populations. Salk then became Associate Research Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine in 1947.

Salk's early work at Pittsburgh was a continuation of his Michigan influenza vaccine research. Next, he focused on carrying out part of the systematic classification of the various strains of poliovirus. As that program neared completion, he began research on a vaccine for the prevention of polio. The central element in Salk's efforts was the development of a non-infectious, or "killed virus," vaccine. He used tissue-culture methods to produce the poliovirus and employed a formaldehyde solution to inactivate it.

By June 1952, Salk and his team had developed what they considered to be a promising experimental polio vaccine, and began testing the vaccine in local children. A massive, nationwide field trial of the vaccine, involving a total of 1,831,702 children in grades one through three, began on April 26, 1954. 441,131 children received the Salk vaccine, 201,229 were injected with a placebo, and the remainder served as uninjected controls. The field trial was coordinated by Thomas Francis at the University of Michigan, who reached the conclusion that the vaccine was "safe, effective, and potent." Francis presented his report in Ann Arbor on April 12, 1955, coincidentally the tenth anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who himself had been a victim of polio. Salk's work was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which raised money from the public through its "March of Dimes" campaign.

By the end of April 1955, around 5 million children had been inoculated with commercially produced Salk vaccine. Unfortunately, a large batch of vaccine manufactured by Cutter Laboratories (Berkeley, California) actually caused polio in 250 cases. The Cutter vaccine was taken off the market and more stringent specifications for the manufacture of the vaccine were put in place. On May 27, 1955, the Surgeon-General announced that the vaccination program could be resumed.

By 1960 Salk had chosen San Diego as the site for what would become the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. A substantial amount of start-up funds came from the National Foundation-March of Dimes. He served as Director of the Salk Institute from 1963-1975.

Salk also conducted important research on the prevention and treatment of influenza, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. In his later years, he wrote and lectured extensively on an evolutionary perspective to provide insight on ways to improve the human condition.

Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Salk wrote books about science, philosophy, and mankind. In The Survival of the Wisest, Salk applied Charles Darwin’s ideas on survival of the fittest to the need for humankind to be educated and have knowledge. And in World Population and Human Values: A New Reality, he and his psychiatrist son, Doctor Jonathan Salk, discussed the interplay between world population growth and human values.

Achievements

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  Salk’s groundbreaking vaccine led to a dramatic decrease in polio cases in the United States; in the four years before the vaccine became available, an average of 40,000 polio cases per year were reported in the United States. By 1961 the number of reported cases had dropped by 97 percent. Founding the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla in 1963 was Salk’s second triumph. He was aided with a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation and support from the March of Dimes.
  
  Among his many honors was the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded in 1977. He also received Lasker Award for clinical medical research in 1956, the United States Order of Merit, and a Congressional Gold Medal.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future

    (Written by a world-famous doctor and folk hero, based on ...)

    2018
  • Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason

    (The book argues that humans can play an active role in th...)

    1983
  • Man unfolding 1972
  • The Survival of the Wisest 1973
  • How like an angel: Biology and the nature of man 1975
  • World Population and Human Values: A New Reality 1981

Religion

Born and raised in Orthodox Jewish family, Jonas Salk was an atheist.

Politics

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wrote that the FBI was told Salk's political leanings were leftist, but ultimately the government concluded in 1952 that Salk was loyal to his country.

Views

Contrary to the era’s prevailing scientific opinion, Salk believed his vaccine, composed of “killed” poliovirus, could immunize without risk of infecting the patient.

Despite Salk's confidence, many of his colleagues were skeptical, believing that a killed-virus vaccine could not possibly be effective. His dubious standing was further compounded by the fact that he was relatively new to polio vaccine research; some of his chief competitors in the race to develop the vaccine - most notably Albert Sabin, the chief proponent for a live-virus vaccine - had been at it for years.

As the field narrowed, the division between the killed-virus and the live-virus camps widened, and what had once been a polite difference of opinion became a serious ideological conflict. Salk and his chief backer, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, were lonely in their corner. Salk failed to let his position in the scientific wilderness dissuade him, and he continued, undeterred, with his research. To test his vaccine's strength, in early 1952, Salk administered a type I vaccine to children who had already been infected with the poliovirus. Afterward, he measured their antibody levels. His results clearly indicated that the vaccine produced large amounts of antibodies. Buoyed by this success, Salk administered the vaccine to volunteers who had not had polio, including himself, his lab scientist, his wife, and their children. All developed anti-polio antibodies and experienced no negative reactions to the vaccine.

Membership

Jonas Salk was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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  Phi Beta Kappa Society , United States

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  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

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  American Association for the Advancement of Science , United States

Personality

Jonas Salk was a controversial person. He defied conventional thinking about the design of vaccines, but refused to defend himself publicly when criticized by fellow scientists about his approach. He was usually cautious and pragmatic but began constructing the institute without enough money to finish it. Salk was passionate about ideas, yet spoke in a dull monotone. He was a freethinker who lived a scripted life.

Although Salk quickly became a world hero, he didn’t enjoy losing his anonymity and gaining the responsibilities that came with being a public figure. Salk exercised and practiced yoga.

Quotes from others about the person

• "My father would insist on also making COVID-19 screening, treatment and vaccination available to all of us, regardless of where we live or our social or economic standing. He would argue that doing so is not only morally right, but profoundly in our national and global interest. When it comes to infectious disease, health - unlike wealth - can’t be hoarded by the few. As long as a virus is circulating in an unimmunized population, it’s a threat to all, and it’s in all our interests to contain, prevent and eradicate it." - Doctor Jonathan Salk, psychiatrist, son of Jonas Salk
  
  "My father was a scientist and an evidence-based thinker. Based on what he knew of evolution, he believed evolutionary pressures would nudge us in the right direction. He would have seen the pandemic as just such a nudge and would have appreciated the irony that a deadly virus, the same thing that prompted the advancement of medical science 65 years ago, might lead us now to advance social evolution toward a healthier, more cooperative, interdependent world where we can not only survive but thrive - if we only listen." - Doctor Jonathan Salk, psychiatrist, son of Jonas Salk

Interests

• yoga

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Buckminster Fuller, Leo Szilard

• Politicians

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt

• Writers

  Norman Cousins

• Sport & Clubs

  horse racing

Connections

On June 8, 1939, Jonas Salk married Donna Lindsay, a psychology major who was employed as a social worker. The couple eventually had three sons: Darrell, Jonathan, and Peter. In 1968, they divorced, and in 1970, Salk married French painter Françoise Gilot, the former mistress of artist Pablo Piccaso.

Father:

Daniel Bonn Salk

Mother:

Dora Press

Brother:

Lee Salk

Brother:

Herman Maurice Salk

Son:

Darrell Salk

Son:

Jonathan Salk

Son:

Peter Salk

ex-wife:

Donna Lindsay

Wife:

Françoise Gilot

mentor:

Thomas Francis

opponent:

Albert Sabin

Jonas Salk was engaged in a four decade long rivalry with Doctor Albert Sabin. Sabin's live oral polio vaccine was developed at about the same time as Salk's injected killed virus vaccine, and the debate rages on over which vaccine has been more effective in combating polio in the long run.

References

• Jonas Salk: The Battle Against Polio
  2014
• Polio: An American Story
  2006
• Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine
  2006
• Jonas Salk: A Life
  2017
• The Polio Pioneer
  2020
• Jonas Salk: Medical Innovator and Polio Vaccine Developer
  2013
• Jonas Salk: Conquering Polio
  2001
• Splendid Solution
  2006