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Hilary Koprowski is an outstanding scientist of Polish origin, a specialist in the field of virology and immunology. It is to him that we owe the development of the first vaccine against the polio virus, which causes the infectious Heine-Medina disease. Scientific success, achievements in the field of medicine and extraordinary interests made Hilary Koprowski a researcher and a man of a kind.
Photo Polio patient in the so-called iron lung, a breathing machine / 1940.
- Polio is an infectious viral disease. In the past, it was the source of epidemics around the world. Since the invention of the vaccine, the number of cases has been significantly reduced
- We owe the development of the first polio vaccine to Hilary Koprowski – an outstanding scientist of Polish origin
- Thanks to Koprowski’s intervention, Poland received 9 million doses of the polio vaccine for free
- You can find more up-to-date information on the TvoiLokony home page
Who was Hilary Koprowski?
Hilary Koprowski was a doctor, but also passionate about music, poetry and art, which is why he was considered a real Renaissance man. Koprowski was born in Warsaw on December 5, 1916 – his mother was a dentist, and his father ran a company dealing in textiles. The future researcher was educated at the Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Mikołaj Rej, and in the years 1934–1939 he studied at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Józef Piłsudski in Warsaw.
When the war broke out, Hilary Koprowski left Poland with his wife Irena, who also graduated in medicine. The couple stayed in Italy for a while, where Hilary joined the volunteer medical service. In 1940, the couple moved to Brazil, and in 1944 they settled permanently in the United States, in a town near Philadelphia. They both were valued figures in the medical world – Irena Koprowska was the director of the cytology department at Temple University, and also headed the Department of Pathology at the Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and acted as a WHO consultant in the field of cytodiagnostics.
Hilary Koprowski never gave up his interest in music, and he wrote poetry and short stories. However, he devoted his professional career to biomedicine, thanks to which he invented the first polio vaccine in 1950. He did not end his scientific activity there, because his achievements also include about 900 various scientific publications and reports in the field of medicine. He was also involved in cancer immunogenetics and studying the etiology of neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
Koprowski died in 2013, less than a year after his wife.
Scientific activities of Hilary Koprowski were not limited to Philadelphia. The scholar collaborated with many organizations and universities, including those in Poland. Honorary doctorates were awarded to him by medical universities in Lublin, Poznań and Warsaw. Koprowski also belonged to the Polish Academy of Sciences. Over the years of active activity, he has accumulated numerous awards, entering the pages of history as an outstanding scientist and creator of the first effective vaccine to protect against Heine-Medin disease.
Hilary Koprowski and his work on the polio vaccine
The beginnings of Hilary Koprowski’s work on the polio vaccine they date back to his stay in Brazil during the war. During this time, he worked at the Yellow Fever Laboratory, where he first began studying viral diseases. Soon after moving to the US, he met Max Theiler, a bacteriologist and virologist who had previously developed a vaccine for yellow fever, and in 1951 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this achievement.
In his experiments, Koprowski used similar research methods as Theiler – he used to acquire immunity to the Heine-Medina disease dead (inactivated) polio viruses. He tested the vaccine on himself first, and his colleagues took the next oral doses. The first time your baby is given the vaccine performed on February 27, 1950 – the result of the dress test was satisfactory as the child developed specific anti-polio antibodies.
The next stage of Hilary Koprowski’s work on the implementation of the vaccine was vaccination on a group of 20 children, which also turned out to be a success. The optimistic results were announced at a medical conference and then published in the American Journal of Hygiene. This is how it came into being the first effective polio vaccine.
Koprowski vaccine in Poland and in the world
Hilary Koprowski vaccine was used for mass vaccinations in Zaire (then Belgian Congo) and Rwanda, later the preparation reached Poland and Croatia. In the 50s, polio affected not only African countries, but also Europe and America. In Poland in 1950, approx. 3 thousand. cases of Heine-Medina disease, and this number was growing, because in 1958 alone, nearly 6 were diagnosed. people. Thanks to Koprowski’s intervention Poland received 9 million doses of the polio vaccine for free.
In 1959, vaccinations began in Poland, and already in 1963, Heine-Medin’s disease was practically eliminated in the country – only a few cases of the disease were recorded then. Though Koprowski’s preparation turned out to be so effective, it was not approved for use in the United States, where polio was a big problem in the mid-40s. Only more polio vaccines were used there – it was the intramuscular vaccine developed by Jonas Salk in 1955 and the Albert Sabin vaccine administered orally, which appeared in 1963.
Scientific research and achievements of Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski did not end his research activities with the polio vaccine. In 1957 he became head of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia. Koprowski was not a conservative man, but he was charismatic and took courageous actions. He also chose this development path for the Institute, which so far has been a center with a rather traditional approach. The scientist therefore transformed the facility into a modern biomedical centerwhich he managed for 34 years.
Research conducted by the Wistar Institute under the leadership of Koprowski included virology, cell biology, experimental oncology and immunogenetics. Research teams continued to work on the polio vaccine complementary work over the years. An important achievement of the Institute were discoveries related to the specificity of the rabies virus – thanks to them it was possible to develop a safe one rabies vaccine administered to people subcutaneously and intramuscularly.
Koprowski also collaborated with the Italian geneticist Carlo M. Croce. Collectively, the researchers provided many useful analyzes related to cancer immunogenetics. They were based on attempts to introduce immunotherapy as a method of cancer treatment. The research results have become the source of numerous and important scientific publications. Other research works that Koprowski was devoted to concerned the etiology of neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis.
In the 90s, the scientist also started working on vaccines against bacterial and viral infections that used transgenic plants.
The career of Hilary Koprowski it was rich in scientific breakthroughs, and the professor left hundreds of publications important to biomedicine. The professor also supported the development of young scientists. Many promising researchers, including interns from Poland, were invited to the research teams of the Wistar Institute. Koprowski also established in 1989 Foundation Koprowski, which was established in Poland to support young talents in the world of biological and medical sciences.
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