BRIEF WEEKLY REPORT

DRUG DISCOVERY OF THE POLIO VACCINE

(THE SALK VACCINE AND ORAL POLIO
VACCINE)
CHE 714 PHARM TECH AND PROCESSING
KANIZ PRIYANGKA
500430440
25/09/2015

A little more than 50 years ago, eradicating polio became a national project in America. Due to
the post war conditions in the country, pandemics and epidemics were an increasing health
issue. Around 1952 the U.S polio epidemic was the worst case of national tragedy and finding
its cure because a national project. The country was in frantic state as it killed and paralysed
over 1000s of its citizens and most of them were children.
The Salk vaccine was the first polio vaccine able to treat the Polio virus successfully. This was
discovered by Jonas Edward Salk who proved that polio could be prevented by injecting killed
polio virus in an individual. Salk used HeLa cells (cells used for scientific research which are
derived from immortal family of cells) in his polio research as they were easily infected and the
cells grew immortally. This allowed him to discover the polio vaccine and once several human
trials were performed, the vaccine was produced in mass scale. This was the start of the cellproducing industry. Because of how emergent the situation of the polio virus was, experimental
trials were done on school children. This would be unthinkable in the present world today but
all hail the Lord, the polio virus showed positive results. The Salk polio vaccine trial stands as
the largest peacetime mobilization of volunteers in American history, requiring the efforts of
325,000 doctors, nurses, educators and private citizens. With no money from federal grants or
pharmaceutical companies, the results were tracked by volunteers using pencils and paper (2).
After the Salk vaccine, an oral vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin which contained the
attenuated (the virus is alive but in the lowest level of activity) form of the polio virus. This
cured the intestinal infection and gave a long term effect which wasnt achieved with the Salk
vaccine. Salk vaccinated patients were carriers of the virus and could pass it along to a further
population. The latter was solved by the advancement of the Salk vaccine which was the oral
vaccine.
Polio or Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. The only way to control
this disease is by introducing the Salk vaccine via bloodstream and an oral polio vaccine. Both of
these vaccines will be talked about in the report as one cant be discussed without the other in
terms of importance, effectiveness in controlling Polio not only in North America but all around
the globe.

WORKS CITED AND REFERENCES

1. Baicus A. History of Polio Vaccine. August. 2012: 642-44. World Journal of Virology.
Web. 25 Sept. 2015.
2. Dennis, Thompson. "The Salk Polio Vaccine: 'Greatest Public health Experiment in
History', Dec.2, 2014. Web. 25 Sept 2015.
3. Hela. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 20 September
2015. Web. 25th September 2015 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa>
4. Polio Vaccine. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24
September 2015. Web. 25th September 2015
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine>
5. Jonas Salk. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24
September 2015. Web. 25th September 2015
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk>