The Mind Creative OCT 2013
The year 1961 will remain
etched in my mind forever. This
was the year when I was
completing my M.Sc. thesis on
polio and related viruses at the
Polio Research Unit at Grant
Medical College, Bombay. This
was also the year when I had
the privilege of meeting and
talking with Albert Sabin, the
discoverer of oral polio
vaccine.
I could hardly believe my luck,
when I shook hands with Dr.
Sabin, one of the most eminent
Virologists of the century. His
method of creating the
attenuated oral polio vaccine
by passing the virulent strains
of poliovirus types 1, 2 and 3
many times in rhesus
monkey kidney tissue cultures
to make it lose its
pathogenicity yet retain its
antigenicity (ability to produce
immunity) is a landmark event
in medical history.
Earlier Dr. Jonas Salk had
invented the “killed” polio
vaccine in USA in mid-1950s.
Before Salk’s “killed” polio
vaccine and Sabin’s live polio
vaccine, poliomyelitis was
considered one of the most
frightening public health
problems.
The 1952 polio epidemic was the
worst outbreak in USA’s history. Of
the 58,000 cases reported, 3145
died and over 21,000 had disabling
paralysis. Salk’s “killed” vaccine
had brought down the incidence
of this dreaded disease but it was
Sabin’s live attenuated vaccine
that practically eradicated polio.
Dr. Jonas Salk
I found Albert Sabin to be a modest
and open-minded person. Aged 56
then, he readily took interest in my
M.Sc. thesis which dealt with polio,
Coxsackie and ECHO viruses.
When I asked him about his
disappointments, he pondered and
replied, "My young daughter is a
promising pianist. But she practices
only two hours a day. To be a concert
pianist, she should practice seven to
eight hours a day."
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