Mikhail Chumakov founded was renamed in his honor as of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2016 the Institute and its vaccine manufacturing facility were reorganized into M.P. Chumakov Center for Research and Development of Biological Products of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A main-belt asteroid 5465 Chumakov discovered by Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina was also named in his honor. Mikhail Chumakov Mikhail Petrovich Chumakov () (November 14, 1909 – June 11, 1993) was a Soviet microbiologist and virologist most famous for conducting pivotal large-scale clinical trials that led to licensing of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) developed by Albert B. Sabin.
Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine flew to Leningrad in June, 1956. As a result of a cooperation of Sabin and Chumakov in Leningrad, Sabin was able to test his attenuated vaccine when funding in America was declined. While Sabin was working behind the Iron Curtain, the Sabin-Chumakov vaccine was determined to be safe and effective. Cold War tensions caused Western scientists to refuse the reports from the Russians about the effectiveness of the Sabin vaccine. However, mass vaccinations of Sabin's vaccine spread throughout Eastern Europe from 1960–1963. Just as some Soviet virologists did not trust the Western Salk vaccine, Americans had similar reservations about the