Polio vaccine The results of the field trial were announced 12 April 1955 (the tenth anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose paralytic illness was generally believed to have been caused by polio). The Salk vaccine had been 60–70% effective against PV1 (poliovirus type 1), over 90% effective against PV2 and PV3, and 94% effective against the development of bulbar polio. Soon after Salk's vaccine was licensed in 1955, children's vaccination campaigns were launched. In the U.S, following a mass immunization campaign promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953
Jonas Salk Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, was a leading professor at the institute until his death in 2004. The institute also served as the basis for Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar's 1979 book "Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts". Beginning in the mid-1980s, Salk also engaged in research to develop a vaccine for another, more recent plague, AIDS. To further this research, he cofounded the Immune Response Corporation with Kevin Kimberlin, to search for a vaccine, and patented Remune, an immune-based therapy. He was unable to secure product liability Insurance. The AIDS vaccine project was discontinued