Albert Bruce Sabin (pronounced SAY-bin; born Abram Saperstejn; August 26, 1906 – March 3, 1993) was a Polish-American scientist. He is best known for creating the oral polio vaccine, which helped almost eliminate the disease. From 1969 to 1972, he was the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Biography

Abram Saperstejn was born in Białystok, Russian Empire (now part of Poland), to Polish-Jewish parents, Jacob Saperstejn and Tillie Krugman. In 1921, he moved with his family on the SS Lapland, a ship that traveled from Antwerp to the Port of New York. In 1930, he became a citizen of the United States and changed his name to Albert Bruce Sabin. He completed high school in Paterson, New Jersey.

Sabin started university in a dentistry program but became interested in the study of viruses and changed his major. He earned a bachelor's degree in science in 1928 and a medical degree in 1931 from New York University.

In 1983, Sabin developed calcification of the cervical spine, which caused paralysis and severe pain. He said in a television interview that this experience made him decide to focus on reducing pain for the rest of his life. This condition was treated successfully with surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1992 when Sabin was 86. A year later, Sabin died in Washington, D.C., from heart failure.

Medical career

From 1931 to 1933, Sabin studied and worked in internal medicine, pathology, and surgery at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1934, he did research at The Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine in England and later joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, which is now called Rockefeller University. During this time, he developed a strong interest in scientific research, especially in the study of infectious diseases.

In 1939, he moved to Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and helped create a vaccine to fight Japanese encephalitis. He remained connected to Cincinnati Children's Hospital and, by 1946, became the head of Pediatric Research at the University of Cincinnati. At the hospital, Sabin supervised the work of Robert M. Chanock, whom he referred to as his "star scientific son."

In 1967, Sabin traveled to Cuba to talk with Cuban officials about creating a partnership between the United States and Cuba through their national academies of sciences. This happened even though the two countries did not have formal diplomatic ties at the time.

Between 1969 and 1972, Sabin lived in Israel and was president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. After returning to the United States, he worked as a research professor at the Medical University of South Carolina from 1974 to 1982. Later, he moved to the Washington, D.C., area and became a resident scholar at the John E. Fogarty International Center, which is located on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

Polio research

As the threat of polio increased, scientists such as Albert Sabin, Jonas Salk in Pittsburgh, and Hilary Koprowski and H. R. Cox in New York City and Philadelphia worked to create a vaccine to stop or reduce the illness. This was difficult because polio had multiple types. In 1951, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis confirmed that there were three main types of the poliovirus, now called type 1, type 2, and type 3.

Jonas Salk created an inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), a "dead" vaccine given by injection, which was used starting in 1955. This vaccine helped prevent most serious effects of polio but did not stop the virus from infecting the intestines.

By studying the intestines of people who had died from polio, Sabin showed that the virus multiplied in the intestines before moving to the nervous system. This discovery suggested that the virus could be grown in tissues other than brain tissue, making vaccine development easier and less expensive. In 1949, John Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Robbins successfully grew the poliovirus in non-nerve tissue, an achievement that earned them the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Sabin created an oral vaccine using weakened strains of the virus that stimulated the immune system without causing paralysis. He tested the vaccine on himself, his family, and colleagues. His first trials took place at the Chillicothe Ohio Reformatory in late 1954. Between 1956 and 1960, Sabin worked with Russian scientists to improve the vaccine and prove its safety and effectiveness. The Sabin vaccine blocked the virus in the intestines, preventing it from entering the bloodstream.

From 1955 to 1961, the oral vaccine was tested on at least 100 million people in the USSR, parts of Eastern Europe, Singapore, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Soviet scientist Mikhail Chumakov organized the first large-scale production of the oral vaccine. This allowed for major trials in the United States in 1960, where 180,000 Cincinnati school children received the vaccine. Sabin’s methods helped eliminate polio in Cincinnati. Despite opposition from the March of Dimes Foundation, which supported Salk’s killed vaccine, Sabin convinced the Public Health Service to approve his vaccine. While the United States delayed, the USSR sent millions of doses of the oral vaccine to areas with polio outbreaks, such as Japan.

Sabin’s first oral vaccine for type 1 poliovirus was approved in the United States in 1961. Vaccines for type 2 and type 3 were approved in 1962.

At first, the monovalent vaccines were mixed and given on a sugar cube because the oral vaccine had a bitter, salty taste. This inspired the lyrics to "A Spoonful of Sugar (Helps the Medicine Go Down)" in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. In 1964, a trivalent oral vaccine containing all three virus types was approved. Sabin’s oral vaccine was easier to administer than Salk’s 1954 vaccine and provided longer-lasting protection. It became the main method of vaccination in the United States for three decades. The vaccine stopped the virus from spreading and made it possible to eliminate polio completely.

Sabin also developed vaccines for other viral diseases, such as encephalitis and dengue. He also studied possible links between viruses and certain cancers.

Philanthropy

Dr. Sabin chose not to patent his vaccine, giving up the right for medicine companies to profit from it. This allowed the vaccine to be sold at a low cost, helping more people receive the treatment. Dr. Sabin did not earn any money from his vaccine and continued to live on his professor salary. In 1993, the Sabin Vaccine Institute was created to keep working on developing and sharing vaccines. To honor Dr. Sabin’s important contributions, the institute gives out the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal each year to people who do important work in vaccinology or a related area.

Awards and recognition

• For the trivalent oral vaccine made from weakened forms of all three types of poliovirus, the president of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR gave the highest civilian honor, the medal of the Order of Friendship Among Peoples (1986).
• Elected to the Polio Hall of Fame, which opened in Warm Springs, Georgia, on January 2, 1958.
• Received the Howard Taylor Ricketts Prize (1959).
• Received the Robert Koch Prize (1962).
• Received the Feltrinelli Prize (1964).
• Won the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (1965).
• Received the Walter Reed Medal from The American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (1969).
• Received the National Medal of Science (1970).
• Received the Medal of Liberty (1986).
• Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1986).
• The Cincinnati Convention Center was named after Sabin from 1985 to 2006.
• In 1999, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center named its new education and conference center after Sabin.
• The street between the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center was renamed Albert Sabin Way on April 28, 2000.
• On March 6, 2006, the U.S. Postal Service released an 87-cent postage stamp with his image as part of its Distinguished Americans series.
• In early 2010, Sabin was nominated by the Ohio Historical Society as a finalist in a statewide vote to be included in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.
• In 2012, Albert Sabin was named a "Great Ohioan" by the Capitol Square Foundation.