Albert Sabin

Albert Bruce Sabin. He was a Polish virologist who became an American citizen. Of Jewish origin (his name was originally Albert Saperstein) he had to flee anti-Semitism in 1921 and arrived at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital ( United States ) in 1939 . There he saw the terrible cases of children attacked by polio and studied it, and discovered that it was transmitted orally.

Summary

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• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Career
  • 2 Death
• 2 Source

Biographical summary

He came from a Jewish family. He was born in Białystok , Poland (then part of Russia ), on August 26 , 1906 . In order to escape the problems derived from the October Revolution of 1917 that established the communist regime, and anti-Semitism, he emigrated with his family to the United States in 1921.

He graduated from Pattison High School, New Jersey . He later went to New York with the aim of studying dentistry , studies that he promised to pay for an uncle of his who was in the profession. However, this career did not satisfy him and he transferred to Medical School. It is said that his passion for microbiology came from reading the book The Microbe Hunters , by Paul Kruif . He obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1928 and a doctor of medicine in 1931 .

Trajectory

Sabin was completing his training at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London . In 1935 he returned to New York and began working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. There his objective was to demonstrate that the polio virus could develop in nervous tissue outside the body. A year later, in 1936 , he moved to the University of Cincinnati and the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation as a professor of pediatrics and in charge of directing research work in virology respectively. He demonstrated that the virus was not only found in the nervous tissue but could also be found in the digestive tract of those affected. He also pointed out that as an enterovirus it could be spread through the digestive tract and by ingesting contaminated food. Indeed, polioviruses belong to the Picornavirus family and the Enterovirus genus .

In 1946 Sabin returned to the University of Cincinnati, now as a research professor in pediatrics and to continue polio studies. Behind him he had the support of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, created by President Roosevelt . He demonstrated that the virus passed to the digestive system, from there to the blood and lymph and the nervous system.

He also identified the three different types of viruses: Brunhilde (type I), Lansing (type II), and Leon (type III); People immunized for one of the viruses are not protected for the others. He also got to work on a live virus vaccine that was tested in 1954 . At that time, however, the Salk vaccine, based on killed and injected viruses, was already becoming widespread and was marketed in 1955 . This proved effective and cases were significantly reduced. However, Sabin persisted in his efforts to create a vaccine based on live or attenuated viruses that could be administered orally, that was trivalent, and that produced longer-lasting protection.

Scientists from Mexico , the Netherlands and the Soviet Union joined the project . Its effectiveness could soon be proven after the vaccination of a large number of children. It was used massively in the Soviet Union and in some countries in the communist orbit in 1958 and 1959 . In 1960 it was also tested in the United States, becoming widespread since 1964 . It was administered in a sugar cube. This form immediately spread throughout the world.

Sabin was a member of numerous national and international medical and scientific societies. He also received many awards and decorations from around the world. Among these we can mention the Medal of Science ( 1971 ), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1986), Medal of Liberty ( 1986 ), Order of Friendship Among Peoples; He was also decorated by the President of the USSR (1986) as well as by the President of Brazil . In 1951 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He also acted as an advisor to the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization, as well as other committees.

An important fact that must be highlighted is that Sabin never wanted to patent the vaccine. He insisted that this should be applied free of charge. In this sense, Salk, also Jewish, creator of the other polio vaccine, also renounced the benefits that the vaccine could have brought him, and neither of them received the Nobel Prize . About two hundred million children were vaccinated in Europe and the United States in the 1960s. It is assumed that about 50,000 deaths and about 5,000,000 cases were avoided.

Sabin confessed to a journalist when talking about his popularity, that people need to create heroes and that his work had not been exclusively his but that of hundreds of people. He recognized his incessant need to do things, to investigate, and hence he felt guilty for neglecting home and family.