Hilary Koprowski

Hilary Koprowski (1916–2013) was a Polish-American virologist and immunologist, and the inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine. He was the director of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1957 to 1991.

Early life and education[edit | edit source]

Koprowski was born in Warsaw, Poland, on December 5, 1916. He studied music at the Warsaw Conservatory and medicine at the University of Warsaw. He earned his medical degree in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II.

Career[edit | edit source]

During the war, Koprowski fled to Brazil, where he worked on a vaccine for yellow fever. In 1944, he moved to the United States and began working at Lederle Laboratories. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1950.

In 1950, Koprowski developed the first successful live-virus vaccine for polio. Unlike the Salk vaccine, which used killed virus, Koprowski's vaccine used live but weakened virus. This made it more effective at providing long-term protection against the disease.

In 1957, Koprowski became director of the Wistar Institute, a position he held until 1991. During his tenure, the institute became a leading center for vaccine research. Koprowski also founded the Wistar Institute's vaccine production facility, one of the first such facilities in the world.

Legacy[edit | edit source]

Koprowski's work on the polio vaccine has had a lasting impact on global health. His vaccine was used in the first large-scale polio vaccination campaigns in Congo and Singapore, and it laid the groundwork for the World Health Organization's global polio eradication efforts.

Koprowski received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1958 and the National Medal of Science in 1990. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.