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Jonas Salk
Stephen Diamond
Biology
11/23/06
Polio was a disease that broke out in the U.S. and many other parts of the world in the 1950’s. There was no cure for the disease and it was out of control and infecting many people with devastating effects, until Jonas Salk stepped in and found a cure.
Jonas Salk was born October 28, 1950 in New York City. His parents were a Russian-Jewish mix who immigrated to the U.S. He was brilliant even at a young age and attended Townsend Harris High school and graduated at the age of 15 ahead in all his classes. He originally wanted to be a lawyer and attended a New York City community college. There he decided to get into medical studies and switched to New York College of Medicine in 1939. He immediately began research on the flu virus which is what led him to Polio. There he met Donna Lindsay Caflin, and later they got married and had three children. He then switched to the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and divorced his wife and married another woman named Francoise Gilot. They moved to Pittsburgh together and he led the virus research there. In Pittsburgh, he discovered and tested his first ever Polio vaccine. He first used his vaccinations at an elementary school and quickly became known as the man who beat Polio. Soon afterward, he struck out on his own and founded an institution in La Jolla, California called the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The main studies were molecular biology and genetics. Some of the first faculty at his institute included many well known names such as Francis Crick.
Salk directed the institute until his death in 1995, he died at the age of 80.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk)

Salk had been working on a cure for aids until his death. Salk was a great scientist, he received many rewards including the Lasker Award, Bruce Memorial Award, Jawaharlal Award, Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, and the...