Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine Polio (Infantile paralysis or poliomyelitis) epidemics were a concern during the summer months for children globally, with records of polio from the Egyptians and Greeks to the 1950s epidemics. In the summer of 1921, this epidemic became notorious when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democratic contender for the vice presidency, was struck down by polio at the age of 39. Two U.S. virologists, Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh and Albert B. Sabin of the University of Cincinnati emerged as the most prominent among dozens of American researchers on the quest for a
Albert Joyce Riker a retired microbiologist from the University of Arizona. He died in Tucson, Arizona. Albert Joyce Riker Dr. Albert Joyce Riker (April 3, 1894 – February 21, 1982) was a noted American plant pathologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Riker was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the son of Albert Birdsall and Mary Edith (Davis) Riker. He graduated from high school in Moundsville, West Virginia, after which he worked for the Royal Three Barrel Gun Company, was an automobile repairman and salesman, and helped build greenhouses. He then attended Oberlin College, receiving in 1917 his A.B. degree in botany.