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| Russian-born
US microbiologist who developed a highly effective, live vaccine against
polio. The earlier vaccine, developed by physicist
Jonas Salk, was based
on heat-killed viruses. Sabin was convinced that a live form would be longer-lasting
and more effective, and in 1957 he succeeded in weakening the virus so that
it lost its virulence. The vaccine can be given by mouth. Sabin was born in Bialystok, Russia (now in Poland), was taken to the USA as a teenager, and studied at New York University. He was professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 1946-60; later posts include president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, 1970-72. Sabin became interested in polio research while working at the Rockefeller Institute. In 1936, he and a co-worker were able to make polio viruses from monkeys grow in tissue cultures from the brain cells of a human embryo. He concentrated on developing a live-virus vaccine because it would not, like the Salk vaccine, have to be injected. Sabin succeeded in finding virus strains of all three types of polio, each producing its own variety of antibody. His vaccine induces a harmless infection of the intestinal tract which causes rapid antibody formation and lasting immunity. The vaccine was commercially available by 1961. |