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On April 12, 1955, the world learned the polio vaccine created by a 51��Ʒ��Ƶ team led by was effective in large-scale field tests. Humanity was given its first glimpse of the end of a pandemic that shuttered schools and caused more than 15,000 U.S. cases of paralysis per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Sixty-five years later, lessons learned from the fight against polio are being applied to a new battle as researchers across the globe race to find a cure for COVID-19.

Since the vaccine created by Salk’s team was proven effective, researchers have moved the science forward based upon modern-day understanding of molecular biology and gene expression.

“Back in the 1950s there were two main approaches to the polio virus and vaccine problem—the killed-virus vaccine approach on one hand, and the live virus vaccine approach on the other,” explained , son of Jonas and a part-time professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the .

In scientific terms, the team demonstrated that chemically inactivated polioviruses could be used successfully to create a vaccine. This gave researchers a broader set of tools to work with for creating vaccines against viral illnesses. And while the team’s virus was , it did smash conventional notions of how vaccines were supposed to be made.  Up to that point, scientific consensus was only weakened versions of live viruses could produce lasting protective immunity.

Peter said, “Today, the list of possibilities is so long. There’s been so much work done over these intervening decades to create a wide range of approaches to making vaccines and to be able to do so quickly. It’s just remarkable the way the world is poised now to respond to this new coronavirus pandemic.” 

Peter, who was 3 years old when his father moved the family from Michigan to Wexford, Pennsylvania, to work at 51��Ʒ��Ƶ, doesn’t remember much about the mood of the country during the outbreak, but one incident stands out in his mind.

“I remember on vacation in Lake Erie I wanted to go to an amusement park, but our parents didn’t want us to mix with crowds during polio season,” he said.   

, former dean of the Graduate School of Public Health, Distinguished University Professor of Health Science and Policy, Epidemiology and holder of the Jonas Salk Chair in Population Health, Epidemiology, remembers the chilling atmosphere all too well. He recalled being warned to stay away from a body of water in his neighborhood dubbed the “polio pond,” which was across the street from where a child struck with the illness lived. (Polio is transmitted through close person-to-person contact.)

Seven years after the Salk team’s polio vaccine was distributed, the incidence of polio in the U.S. had declined by 97% and the nation’s anxieties were eased. National priorities had also shifted in ways that would benefit public health and medical research for years to come.“Even though there wasn’t a full lockdown, people understood that polio was transmitted from contaminated areas,” he said. “More importantly, people were afraid. It was a different fear, it was a fear for the children.”

“There was very little government funding for any kind of biomedical research. The polio research was privately funded through the March of Dimes,” explained , Dean Emeritus and Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the .

After the polio vaccine was proven effective, Juhl said the government recognized investment in science and medicine was a “lifesaving proposition.”

“The National Institutes of Health and all the federal funding of research that is done now received a huge jolt forward thanks to the polio vaccine.”

Within the University, investments in medicine and science blossomed, and its reputation in the fields became internationally known overnight. 

“The fact that the polio vaccine project was so successful made an enormous difference for the University in terms of its ability to expand its research programs and capacity,” Peter Salk said. “The University has such an extraordinary infrastructure in the health sciences, including the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Public Health and the Center for Vaccine Research. It continues to make a wide range of important contributions in the fields of medicine and public health.”

Beyond 51��Ʒ��Ƶ, Juhl believes the story of the Salk team’s polio vaccine is one designed to advance American medical innovation as a whole. Juhl worked with , a senior lecturer in the in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, to create the documentary, “,” which explores the creation of the vaccine and the important role that the 51��Ʒ��Ƶsburgh community played in its success.

“Whether 51��Ʒ��Ƶ ends up doing it again or not [with COVID-19], people should take a large degree of hope that when American medicine is unleashed on a problem, good things can really happen,” Juhl said.