1949

Breakthrough toward polio vaccine, John Enders’ lab and: John Enders and colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital achieve “great breakthrough” in development of polio vaccine: they demonstrate the in vitro growth of the Lansing strain of polio virus in cultures of non-nervous embryonic tissue (i.e., bit of skin, muscle, and kidney tissues). “The implications were profound. By cultivating these viruses in a test tube, rather than in the brain or spinal column of a monkey . . . a safe reservoir of poliovirus had now been created, free from the contaminating effect of animal nerve tissue. And that, in turn, made possible the mass production of a vaccine” (Oshinsky II, 174-175). Among the results was identification of new properties of polio virus and new ways to asses v v crust (i.e., purified crystals of polio virus) in tissue culture rather than through laboratory animals (Rogers, 173; Gould, 123-125).