Jonas Salk when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered one of the most frightening public health problems in the world. In the postwar United States, annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 U.S. epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis, with most of its victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William L. O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned." According to a 2009 PBS
Salk Institute for Biological Studies Elizabeth Blackburn, Sydney Brenner, and Roger Guillemin. Three of Salk's 11 Nobel laureates are now deceased: Francis Crick, Robert W. Holley, and Renato Dulbecco. Another five scientists trained at Salk have gone on to win Nobel prizes. The institute is organized into several research units, each of which is further composed of several scientific groups, each led by a member of the faculty. Some of these units are: Elizabeth Blackburn is the President of the Salk Institute since 1 January 2016. Edward Callaway is the chair of the academic council. There are 56 faculty members. Six of these are members