Albert Bruce Sabin's "live"-virus vaccine

Albert Bruce Sabin (August 26, 1906 – March 3, 1993) was an American medical researcher best-known for having developed an oral polio vaccine.

During World War II Albert Bruce Sabin was a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Medical Corps and helped to develop vaccines against dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis. By 1946 he had also become the head of Pediatric Research at the University of Cincinnati. With the menace of polio growing, Sabin and other researchers, most notably Jonas Salk in Pittsburgh, sought a vaccine to prevent or mitigate the illness. In 1955, Salk's "killed" vaccine was tested and released for use. It was effective in preventing most of the complications of polio, but did not prevent the initial, intestinal infection. Sabin's "live"-virus vaccine, developed from attenuated polio virus, began international testing through the World Health Organization in 1957, when large groups of children in Russia, Holland, Mexico, Chile, Sweden and Japan received it. In 1961 the United States Public Health Service endorsed his "live"-polio-virus vaccine. Prepared with cultures of attenuated polio viruses, it could be taken orally and prevented the actual contraction of the disease. It was this vaccine that effectively eliminated polio from the World.