Harry Weaver (neuroscience) died at his home in San Clemente, California, age 68. The polio vaccine was discovered and developed by Jonas Salk between 1952 and 1955. Weaver, acting as the Director of Research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes,from 1946 to 1953, supported Salk's work with a sense of urgency for the development of the Polio vaccine. Weaver's urgency for developing a vaccine as quickly as possible was somewhat counter to the development of the Oral polio vaccine by Albert Sabin between 1954 and 1961. However, his support of Salk's vaccine was considered to
Smallpox vaccine sheep were used. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Leslie Collier, an English microbiologist working at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, developed a method for producing a heat-stable freeze-dried vaccine in powdered form. Collier added 0.5% phenol to the vaccine to reduce the number of bacterial contaminants but the key stage was to add 5% peptone to the liquid vaccine before it was dispensed into ampoules. This protected the virus during the freeze drying process. After drying the ampoules were sealed under nitrogen. Like other vaccines, once reconstituted it became ineffective after 1–2 days at ambient temperatures. However,