Decades of Virology

COVID-19 is not the first deadly virus to confront Pitt researchers. The lab of Jonas Salk and Julius Youngner famously produced the polio vaccine in 1955 that nearly halved polio cases in its first year of existence in the United States and helped to all but eradicate polio worldwide. Youngner created techniques for producing poliovirus on a large scale in the laboratory and developed a process for eliminating the infectiousness of the virus without destroying its shape, while also developing the methodology used for safety testing before the first field trials. 

After Salk left Pitt, Youngner stayed on and continued his groundbreaking work, including blocking the replication of RNA viruses and developing antiviral therapies, both techniques that contributed to COVID-19 vaccine research after his death in 2017.