PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dr. Hilary Koprowski, a pioneering virologist who developed the first successful oral vaccination for polio, died this week at his suburban Philadelphia home. He was 96.
Although not as well-known as fellow researchers Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, Koprowski's 1950 clinical trial was the first to show it was possible to vaccinate against polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease that's now all but eradicated.
Koprowski's son, Christopher, said Saturday his father liked the scientific recognition his work received without the celebrity of Salk and Sabin.
"He enjoyed not having his scientific work disrupted," said Christopher Koprowski, chief of radiation oncology at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del. "Not that he was a modest individual, mind you."