Albert Bruce Sabin (/ˈseɪbɪn/SAY-bin; born Abram Saperstejn; August 26, 1906 – March 3, 1993) was a Polish-American medical researcher, best known for developing the oral polio vaccine, which has played a key role in nearly eradicating the disease. In 1969–72, he served as the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Sabin began university in a dentistry program, but was interested in virology and changed majors. He received a bachelor's degree in science in 1928 and a medical degree in 1931 from New York University.[3][4]
In 1983, Sabin developed calcification of the cervical spine, which caused paralysis and intense pain.[5][6] Sabin revealed in a television interview that the experience had made him decide to spend the rest of his life working on alleviating pain.[7] This condition was successfully treated by surgery conducted at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1992 when Sabin was 86. A year later, Sabin died in Washington, D.C., from heart failure.
Sabin went on a fact-finding trip to Cuba in 1967 to discuss with Cuban officials the possibility of establishing a collaborative relationship between the United States and Cuba through their respective national academies of sciences, in spite of the fact that the two countries did not have formal diplomatic ties.[9]
Salk developed an inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), a "dead" vaccine given by injection, which was released for use in 1955.[12][13]
It was effective in preventing most of the complications of polio, but did not prevent the initial intestinal infection.[13]
By carrying out autopsies of polio victims, Sabin was able to demonstrate that the poliovirus multiplied and attacked the intestines before it moved to the central nervous system. This also suggested that polio virus could be grown in other tissues besides embryonic brain tissue, leading to easier and cheaper methods of vaccine development.[3][10]John Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Robbins would successfully grow poliovirus in laboratory cultures of non-nerve tissue in 1949, an achievement that earned them the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[3]
Sabin developed an oral vaccine based on mutant strains of polio virus that seemed to stimulate antibody production but not to cause paralysis. Recipients of his live attenuated oral vaccine included himself, family, and colleagues. Sabin's first clinical trials were carried out at the Chillicothe Ohio Reformatory in late 1954. From 1956–1960, he worked with Russian colleagues to perfect the oral vaccine and prove its extraordinary effectiveness and safety. The Sabin vaccine worked in the intestines to block the poliovirus from entering the bloodstream.[3]
Between 1955 and 1961, the oral vaccine was tested on at least 100 million people in the USSR, parts of Eastern Europe, Singapore, Mexico, and the Netherlands. The first industrial production and mass use of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) from Sabin strains was organized by Soviet scientist Mikhail Chumakov.[14][15] This provided the critical impetus for allowing large-scale clinical trials of OPV in the United States in April 1960 on 180,000 Cincinnati school children. The mass immunization techniques that Sabin pioneered with his associates effectively eradicated polio in Cincinnati. Against considerable opposition from the March of Dimes Foundation, which supported use of Salk's relatively effective killed vaccine, Sabin prevailed on the Public Health Service (PHS) to license his three strains of vaccine. While the PHS stalled, the USSR sent millions of doses of the oral vaccine to places with polio epidemics, such as Japan.[10]
Sabin's first oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), for use against type 1 polioviruses, was licensed in the United States in 1961. His vaccines for type 2 and type 3 polioviruses were licensed in 1962.
At first, the monovalent poliovirus vaccines were administered together by being put on a sugar cube,[16] because the oral polio vaccine had a bitter, salty taste (inspiring Robert B. Sherman's lyrics to A Spoonful of Sugar (Helps the Medicine Go Down) for the 1964 film Mary Poppins).[17] In 1964, a single trivalent OPV containing all three viral serotypes was approved.[13][10] Sabin's oral vaccine was easier to give than the earlier vaccine developed by Salk in 1954, and its effects lasted longer.[18] The Sabin vaccine became the predominant method of vaccination against polio in the United States for the next three decades. It broke the chain of transmission of the virus and allowed for the possibility that polio might one day be eradicated.[3][10]
Sabin also developed vaccines against other viral diseases, including encephalitis and dengue.[19] In addition, he investigated possible links between viruses and some forms of cancer.[20]
Philanthropy
edit
Sabin refused to patent his vaccine, waiving commercial exploitation by pharmaceutical industries, so that the low price would guarantee a more extensive spread of the treatment. From the development of his vaccine Sabin did not gain a penny, and continued to live on his salary as a professor. The Sabin Vaccine Institute was founded in 1993 to continue the work of developing and promoting vaccines. To commemorate Sabin's pioneering work, the institute annually awards the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal in recognition of work in the field of vaccinology or a complementary field.
Awards and recognition
edit
For the trivalent oral vaccine consisting of attenuated strains of all three types of the poliovirus, the president of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded the highest civilian honour, the medal of the Order of Friendship Among Peoples (1986).[22][23][24]
^Moreno, Barry (October 4, 2017). Ellis Island's Famous Immigrants. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738555331. Retrieved October 4, 2017 – via Google Books.
^"The Legacy of Albert B. Sabin - Sabin". www.sabin.org. October 2012. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
^"Albert Sabin Biography". Notable Biographies. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
^Philip Boffey, Sabin, Paralyzed, Tells of Death Wish. In the New York Times, November 27, 1983.
^Ezra Bowen, The Doctor Whose Vaccine Saved Millions from Polio Battles Back from a Near-Fatal Paralysis Archived 2009-07-04 at the Wayback Machine. In People, July 2, 1984.
^Health Care; The Fight Against Death. Special comment by Keith Olbermann on Countdown, 2009-10-07.
^Brown, Emma. "Robert M. Chanock, virologist who studied children's diseases, dies at 86", The Washington Post, August 4, 2010. Accessed August 9, 2010.
^Jiménez, Marguerite (June 9, 2014). "Epidemics and Opportunities for U.S.-Cuba Collaboration". Science & Diplomacy. 3 (2).
^ abcdeWilson, Daniel J. (2009). Polio. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 95, 123–125. ISBN 9780313358975. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
^CDC. "U.S. National Authority for Containment of Poliovirus". U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
^Juskewitch, Justin E.; Tapia, Carmen J.; Windebank, Anthony J. (August 2010). "Lessons from the Salk Polio Vaccine: Methods for and Risks of Rapid Translation". Clinical and Translational Science. 3 (4): 182–185. doi:10.1111/j.1752-8062.2010.00205.x. PMC2928990. PMID 20718820.
^ abcRacaniello, Vincent (March 30, 2009). "Learning vaccinology from an immunization record". Virology Blog. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
^
Sabin A.B. (1987). "Role of my cooperation with Soviet scientists in the elimination of polio: possible lessons for relations between the U.S.A. and the USSR". Perspect Biol Med. 31 (1): 57–64. doi:10.1353/pbm.1987.0023. PMID 3696960. S2CID 45655185.
^
Benison S (1982). "International Medical Cooperation: Dr. Albert Sabin, Live Poliovirus Vaccine and the Soviets". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 56 (4): 460–83. PMID 6760938.
^"Polio: Two Vaccines". Whatever Happened to Polio?. National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved September 10, 2021. Image caption: Oral polio vaccine used in the early 1960s, and sugar cubes (2004 vintage) on which the drops would be placed before feeding the vaccine to children
^"Our History | Vaccine Resources". www.cincinnatichildrens.org.
"Sausalito News 8 August 1962 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
MINICHIELLO, SUSAN (April 1, 2021). "How polio was eliminated in Sonoma County". Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
"History of polio vaccination". www.who.int. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
Hampton, Lee (January 2009). "Albert Sabin and the Coalition to Eliminate Polio From the Americas". American Journal of Public Health. 99 (1): 34–44. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2007.117952. PMC2636601. PMID 19008524.
"What happened when a million Nebraskans drank Polio Punch". Nebraska State Historical Society. October 29, 2022. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
^ ab"News - Special Reports - Albert B. Sabin -- National Medal of Science 50th Anniversary - NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
^Koprowski, Hilary (April 1993). "Albert B. Sabin" (PDF). Nature. 362 (6420): 499. Bibcode:1993Natur.362..499K. doi:10.1038/362499a0. PMID 8464487. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
^Furman, Bess (January 3, 1958). "New Hall of Fame Hails Polio Fight". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
^Tan, Siang Yong; Ponstein, Nate (January 2019). "Jonas Salk (1914–1995): A vaccine against polio". Singapore Medical Journal. 60 (1): 9–10. doi:10.11622/smedj.2019002. ISSN 0037-5675. PMC6351694. PMID 30840995.
^Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences. Academic Press. April 29, 2014. ISBN 978-0-12-385158-1.
^"Finding aid for the Albert B. Sabin Papers (Addendum)". ead.ohiolink.edu. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
^Bonfield, Tim (July 5, 1999). "Sabin has been snubbed before". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved October 11, 2015.
^"Albert Sabin Way to be dedicated". University Currents. www.uc.edu. April 21, 2000. Archived from the original on June 7, 2010. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
^"Capitol Square Foundation press release". Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
Bibliography
Saldías G, Ernesto (December 2006). "Centenary of Albert B. Sabin MD birthdate". Revista chilena de infectología. 23 (4): 368–9. doi:10.4067/S0716-10182006000400013. PMID 17186087.
Smith, Derek R; Leggat Peter A (2005). "Pioneering figures in medicine: Albert Bruce Sabin--inventor of the oral polio vaccine". The Kurume Medical Journal. 52 (3): 111–6. doi:10.2739/kurumemedj.52.111. PMID 16422178.
Emed, A (April 2000). "[Albert B Sabin (1906-1993)]". Harefuah. 138 (8): 702–3. PMID 10883218.
Chanock, R M (March 1996). "Reminiscences of Albert Sabin and his successful strategy for the development of the live oral poliovirus vaccine". Proc. Assoc. Am. Physicians. 108 (2): 117–26. PMID 8705731.
Dalakas, M C (May 1995). "Opening remarks. On post-polio syndrome and in honor of Dr. Albert B. Sabin". Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 753: xi–xiv. PMID 7611615.
Beumer, J (1994). "[Academic eulogy of Professor Albert Bruce Sabin, foreign honorary member]". Bull. Mem. Acad. R. Med. Belg. 149 (5–7): 220–4. PMID 7795544.
Horaud, F (December 1993). "Albert B. Sabin and the development of oral poliovaccine". Biologicals. 21 (4): 311–6. doi:10.1006/biol.1993.1089. PMID 8024745.
Melnick, J L; Horaud F (December 1993). "Albert B. Sabin". Biologicals. 21 (4): 297–303. doi:10.1006/biol.1993.1087. PMID 8024743.
"Homage to Albert Sabin". Biologicals. 21 (4): 295–384. December 1993. doi:10.1006/biol.1993.1087. PMID 8024742.
Newsom, B (June 1993). "In memoriam: Albert B. Sabin, M.D., 1906-1993". Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association (1975). 89 (6): 311. PMID 8320975.
Grouse, L D (April 1993). "Albert Bruce Sabin". JAMA. 269 (16): 2140. doi:10.1001/jama.269.16.2140. PMID 8468772.
Koprowski, H (April 1993). "Albert B. Sabin (1906-1993)". Nature. 362 (6420): 499. Bibcode:1993Natur.362..499K. doi:10.1038/362499a0. PMID 8464487. S2CID 706753.
Sabin, A B; Ramos-Alvarez M; Alvarez-Amezquita J; Pelon W; Michaels R H; Spigland I; Koch M A; Barnes J M; Rhim J S (June 1984). "Landmark article Aug 6, 1960: Live, orally given poliovirus vaccine. Effects of rapid mass immunization on population under conditions of massive enteric infection with other viruses. By Albert B. Sabin, Manuel Ramos-Alvarez, José Alvarez-Amezquita, William Pelon, Richard H. Michaels, Ilya Spigland, Meinrad A. Koch, Joan M. Barnes, and Johng S. Rhim". JAMA. 251 (22): 2988–93. doi:10.1001/jama.251.22.2988. PMID 6371279.
Benison, S (1982). "International medical cooperation: Dr. Albert Sabin, live poliovirus vaccine and the Soviets". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 56 (4): 460–83. PMID 6760938.
Dixon, B (December 1977). "Medicine and the media: polio still paralyses (Albert Sabin, Jonas Salk)". British Journal of Hospital Medicine. 18 (6): 595. PMID 342023.
Draffin, R W (January 1977). "Citation for Dr. Albert B. Sabin of Charleston, S.C. on presentation of Honorary Fellowship 1976". The Journal of the American College of Dentists. 44 (1): 28–30. PMID 320241.
Further reading
edit
The Myth of Jonas Salk: It was Albert Sabin’s vaccine, not Salk’s, that truly defeated polio. By Angela Matysiak July 1, 2005 MIT Technology Review
Archives holding his papers
External links
edit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Albert Sabin.
Dr. Albert Sabin's Discovery of the Oral Polio Vaccine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Obituary, NY Times, March 4, 1993
Sabin Vaccine Institute
Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives, University of Cincinnati
The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project Blog, University of Cincinnati
The Albert B. Sabin Archives Digital Collection, University of Cincinnati
The Finding Aid for the Albert B. Sabin Papers, University of Cincinnati