Hilary Koprowski (5 December 1916 – 11 April 2013) was a Polish virologist and immunologist. He was the first scientist to produce attenuated poliovirus and to conduct large-scale clinical research studies of an oral polio vaccine. His vaccine was used to immunize millions of children during trials in the Belgian Congo and Poland. He was the director of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology from 1957 to 1991 where he developed an improved rabies vaccine and pioneered the usage of monoclonal antibodies for cancer diagnosis and treatment. He was a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center of Neurovirology and Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University. He co-founded the biotechnology firm Centocor in 1979. He was accused in the oral polio vaccine AIDS hypothesis that HIV/AIDS originated from his oral polio vaccine studied in the Belgian Congo. This hypothesis was challenged and scientists have largely rejected it. He received the Philadelphia Award in 1989; the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal for his work in biomedical research in 2007; the John Scott Medal; and the Legion of Honour. Drexel University College of Medicine established the Hilary Koprowski Prize in Neurovirology in his honor. In 2018, Poland posthumously conferred the Order of the White Eagle upon Koprowski.
Early life and education Koprowski was born December 5, 1916, in Warsaw, Poland. His father was a textile manufacturer and his mother was a dentist. He began playing piano at age 5. He graduated from Mikolaj Rej High School and received a degree in piano from the Warsaw Conservatory. He was a polymath and spoke several languages as a teenager. He worked one summer in a laboratory in Dublin, Ireland, which sparked his interest in science. He attended the University of Warsaw Medical School and graduated in 1939. In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Koprowski and his pregnant wife, fled the country, using Koprowski family business connections in Manchester, England. Hilary went to Rome and studied piano at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory. His wife completed her medical residency in France and they were reunited in Portugal before moving to Brazil. On June 3, 1983, Koprowski received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Career
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