“I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.”
—Jonas Salk
About Jonas Edward Salk:
Jonas Edward Salk is an American virologist and medical researcher. He is most famous for his work with polio vaccine. Salk vaccine or the oral polio vaccine is one of the most successful discoveries in medical history. It was the first successful polio vaccine and as soon as it’s effectiveness was made public, he was announced as a miracle worker. And one of the most notable thing was the fact that he chose not to patent it or get any profits from it. He took this step to maximize it’s global use. He has been honored by numerous titles and awards for his notable work. He was called the father of bio philosophy by the New York Times. As per Times journalist and author Howard Taubman, “he never forgets … there is a vast amount of darkness for man to penetrate. As a biologist, he believes that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries; and as a philosopher, he is convinced that humanists and artists have joined the scientists to achieve an understanding of man in all his physical, mental and spiritual complexity. Such interchanges might lead, he would hope, to a new and important school of thinkers he would designate as bio philosophers.”
He did his early education at the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine. In later years he accepted a professorship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and did his research on polio and it’s vaccine. In 1963, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He spent his last years researching for a vaccine for HIV. But the only regret that remains is that he was not given membership in the American Academy of Sciences and was never awarded a Nobel Prize, even after having made a discovery of such extent.
