Salk Institute for Biological Studies Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is an independent, non-profit, scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Building did not start until spring of 1962. The institute consistently ranks among the top institutions in the US in terms of research output and quality in the life sciences. In 2004, the Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Salk as the world's top biomedicine research institute, and in
Jonas Salk the University of Michigan. Francis had recently joined the faculty of the medical school after working for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he had discovered the type B influenza virus. According to Bookchin, "the two-month stint in Francis's lab was Salk's first introduction to the world of virology—and he was hooked." After graduating from medical school, Salk began his residency at New York's prestigious Mount Sinai Hospital, where he again worked in Francis's laboratory. In 1947, Salk became ambitious for his own lab and was granted one at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, but the lab was smaller than