Eugene Kucharz
Katowice, Poland

Hilary Koprowski (Fig. 1) was born on December 5, 1916, in Warsaw, Poland. At the age of five, he was already playing the piano, and at the age of twelve, began studying at the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. He graduated from Mikołaj Rej High School in Warsaw and then earned a medical degree from the University of Warsaw, where he married a fellow medical student, Irena Grasberg.

In 1939, Koprowski left for Rome to continue his music studies at the Academy of St. Cecilia.¹ There, he was caught up in the outbreak of World War II. His wife also left the country and went first to England, then to France. After the German invasion of France, the Koprowskis went to Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, Irena worked as a pathologist in a hospital, while Hilary initially gave piano lessons and sometimes concerts, and later returned to scientific work. He had already begun his scientific research in Warsaw as an assistant at the Department of Experimental Pathology at the University of Warsaw. He continued his research throughout his life, working outside Poland from 1939, initially in Brazil and then in the United States.

In 1944, he became an assistant in the Section of Viral and Rickettsial Research at Lederle Laboratories in Pearl River, New York. He later became deputy director of the center and moved to Philadelphia, where he spent the rest of his life. He served as a professor and director of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Center of Neurovirology and Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University, and president of the Biotechnology Foundation, Inc.²

Hilary Koprowski’s greatest medical discovery was the development of an attenuated virus for poliomyelitis, also known as Heine-Medin disease. After many attempts, he managed to find a laboratory animal (the cotton rat, Sigmodon hispidus) that is naturally resistant to infection with the polio virus. After infection by injection and passage through several individuals, a live virus with significantly reduced virulence was obtained, thus suitable for the production of a vaccine. This method of obtaining an attenuated virus was similar to Louis Pasteur’s first method of obtaining an attenuated rabies virus (virus fix) in a laboratory strain of rabbits.

The vaccine produced by Hilary Koprowski was conveniently administered orally, thus mimicking the natural route of infection. In accordance with old tradition, the scientist and his colleagues first took the vaccine themselves. The vaccine was first administered on February 27, 1950, and the mass vaccinations began in 1958. The vaccine proved to be highly effective and safe, which led to its widespread use, though it was not approved for use in the United States. An inactivated vaccine containing killed virus was developed by Jonas Salk in 1955. Albert Sabin’s early work with attenuated-live-virus polio vaccine was developed from attenuated polio virus that Sabin had received from Koprowski. Sabin’s vaccine came into commercial use in 1961.^1,3,4

Professor Koprowski maintained contact with his homeland throughout his life. Polio was an epidemic threat in Poland. Before the introduction of vaccinations, around 6,000 children there fell ill each year; some died, and virtually all who survived were left disabled. It was Koprowski who persuaded the vaccine manufacturer to deliver nine million doses to Poland free of charge, which quickly controlled the epidemic.⁵ With the cooperation of Professor Feliks Przesmycki, director of the National Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw, mass vaccination of children was carried out in the fall of 1959. Just over 1,000 new cases were recorded in 1959, and by 1963 the number of new cases had decreased to just thirty. This soon led to the complete eradication of the infection in Poland.

Koprowski conducted scientific research until the end of his life. He authored or co-authored over 875 scientific papers and co-edited several scientific journals. He visited Poland many times and spoke Polish fluently.

Professor Koprowski died on April 14, 2013. Although he often faced challenges in various areas of biomedicine, he was one of the most prominent virologists in history. His research and vaccine development have saved millions of human beings around the world.⁵

Of interest, both Albert Sabin and Hilary Koprowski were born in Polish territories. Sabin was born in Białystok in 1906, which was in those days part of the Russian Empire, becoming a Polish city in 1919 when Poland regained independence. Sabin emigrated to the US in 1921. Both of these great scientists believed that the mission of medicine is to help all human beings, and overcame the challenges and limitations of the Iron Curtain to protect children against the terrible and often fatal disease of polio.

References

1. Kucharz EJ. Hilary Koprowski (Obituary). Reumatologia 2014; 52 (2): 153-154 (in Polish).
2. Gilden D. Hilary Koprowski MD (1916-2013). J Neurol Sci 2013; 332, 1-3.
3. Plotkin SA. In Memoriam: Hilary Koprowski, 1916–2013. J Virol. 2013;87(15):8270–8271.
4. Koprowski H. First decade (1950-1960) of studies and trials with the polio vaccine. Biologicals. 2006;34(2):81-86.
5. Bejrowski P. Hilary Koprowski: the man who overcame polio. Trans. Alicja Rose and Jessica Sirotin. Polish History. https://polishhistory.pl/hilary-koprowski-the-man-who-overcame-polio/