Jonas Salk vaccine. A few weeks later, Salk injected children at the Polk State School for the retarded and feeble-minded. In 1954 he tested the vaccine on about one million children, known as the polio pioneers. The vaccine was announced as safe on April 12, 1955. The project became large, involving 100 million contributors to the March of Dimes, and 7 million volunteers. The foundation allowed itself to go into debt to finance the final research required to develop the Salk vaccine. Salk worked incessantly for two and a half years. Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was the first vaccine for the disease;
The Immune Response Corporation The Immune Response Corporation The Immune Response Corporation (IRC), founded by Jonas Salk and Kevin Kimberlin and based in Carlsbad, California, pioneered immunotherapeutic products. Francis Crick once said about Salk, “Few have made one discovery that has benefited humanity so greatly. Jonas was a man who, right to his last day, was actively in pursuit of another.” That pursuit was The Immune Response Corporation. Kimberlin “asked Salk to become lead scientific advisor for a new biotech company specializing in ‘anti-idiotypes,’ a novel vaccine technology.” Salk called the proposal “liberating.” The management team included CEO Jim Glavin, former CEO of Genetic