Albert Sabin

University of Cincinnati: Notable Figures

Albert Sabin

Dr. Albert Sabin was employed by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation from 1939 to 1969. It was during this period, the potentially crippling polio virus had reached epidemic proportions. While Professor of Research Pediatrics, Dr. Sabin began extensively studying ways to prevent the spread of polio and discovered an oral, live virus, polio vaccine.¹

The University of Cincinnati’s Vontz Center for Molecular Studies.

(Courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

(Courtesy of the Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives)

Sabin and his colleagues tested it on themselves first and then conducted clinical testing on prisoners, discovering no negative side effects. Unable to gain permission to conduct large scale testing in the United States, foreign countries welcomed Dr. Sabin’s new polio vaccine. Upon seeing the success of the vaccine worldwide, the United States finally allowed the vaccine to be administered in this country.²

(Courtesy of the Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives)

The eradication of Polio disease from the Western Hemisphere is a direct result of Dr. Sabin’s hard work and research. To commemorate this University of Cincinnati researcher, the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies houses a permanent exhibit on Sabin, who died in 1993. Letters and artwork done by children across the globe, thanking Sabin for his vaccine is included in the showcase.³

1. “Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives,” University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, http://sabin.uc.edu (accessed October 4, 2011).

2. Stuart Bloom and Ingrid Geesink, “A Brief History of Polio Vaccines,” Science 288, no. 5471 (June 2000): 1593-1594. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/288/5471/1593.full (accessed October 4, 2011).

3. Hauck Center

Images

Dr. Sabin at his desk in Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital Research Foundation, Hauck Center for Albert B. Sabin Archives, http://sabin.uc.edu/inventory.cfm (accessed October 4, 2011).

Dr. Sabin administers his oral vaccine to two Cincinnati children, Hauck Center for Albert B. Sabin Archives, http://sabin.uc.edu/scope.cfm (accessed October 4, 2011).

Lisa Ventre, University of Cincinnati’s Albert H. Vontz Center for Molecular Studies, University of Cincinnati, http://www.uc.edu/News/NR.aspx?ID=8041 (accessed October 4, 2011).

Case 1 of Sabin Exhibit at University of Cincinnati’s Vontz Center, Hauck Center for Albert B. Sabin Archives, http://sabin.uc.edu/exhibit.cfm (accessed October 4, 2011).

Case 2 of Sabin Exhibit at University of Cincinnati’s Vontz Center, Hauck Center for Albert B. Sabin Archives, http://sabin.uc.edu/exhibit.cfm (accessed October 4, 2011).