 
Oral Polio Vaccine Namesake
Dr. Albert Sabin (1906-1993) in 1950 developed a polio
vaccine that could be taken by mouth, rather than injection. Polio was a
much-feared viral disease that could cause death and frequently left victims
paralyzed in various parts of the body.
The oral live
polio vaccine was developed as an alternative to the highly effective injected,
killed polio vaccine previously developed by Jonas Salk. The oral vaccine remains in wide
use today. Sabin isolated strains of each type of polio virus that were not
strong enough to produce the disease themselves. However, these
strains were capable of
stimulating the production of antibodies to combat the infection.
This technique led
to Sabin's oral polio vaccine that won FDA approval in 1960. His work
prevented an estimated 5 million cases of polio and 500,000 deaths
worldwide.
 Sabin began his career in biomedical research in
1926 while he was a student at New York University. He worked at the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research briefly, and then moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in
1939.
Apart from time serving in World War II, Sabin spent the next thirty years
working at the University of Cincinnati College of
Medicine and the Children's Hospital Research Foundation. During the war, Sabin
focused on exploring the many viral diseases that impacted American troops
serving abroad. As a result of this and future work, Sabin developed a
vaccine for Japanese encephalitis.
In the 1960's, Sabin's oral polio vaccine was distributed to about 100 million
children throughout Europe. From 1962
to 1964, the vaccine was given to about 100 million people in the U.S. It is said that in just its first two
years of use, Dr. Sabin's vaccine prevented nearly 500,000 deaths and five
million cases of paralytic polio.
Did You Know?
- To honor his work, Sabin received 46
honorary degrees from universities around the world.
- Sabin also received the United States
National Medal of Science in 1970 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in
1986.
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