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S2007 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal 2007 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Address Delivered by Award Recipient Hilary Koprowski, MD Salute by Stanley B. Prusiner, MD and Stanley A. Plotkin, MD, PhD May 1, 2007 SBaltimore, Maryland WELCOME Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD President and CEO, Sabin Vaccine Institute he Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Sabin Vaccine TInstitute to recognize individuals who personify exemplary contributions to disease prevention through development or use of vaccines. Nominations are solicited from members of the scientific community, and from these noteworthy nominees, an honoree is selected by the Sabin Gold Medal Advisory Committee, composed of previous medal recipients and chaired by Maj. Gen. Philip K. Russell, MD (USA Ret.). The 2007 winner of the Sabin Gold Medal is Hilary Koprowski, MD, one of the world’s outstanding biomedical researchers over the last half century. A contemporary of Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk, Dr. Koprowski was actually the first to test a polio vaccine in large-scale human trials, and his work on a live- virus vaccine laid the foundation for Dr. Sabin’s oral polio vaccine, which became the preferred instrument in the worldwide campaign to eradicate polio. Even beyond this early work, the scope of Dr. Koprowski’s achievements is simply remarkable, ranging from polio to rabies and to monoclonal antibodies that are a key to effective cancer immunotherapy. Any serious discussion of the giants of 20th century biomedical research must include Hilary Koprowski as one of the most prominent. For his many accomplishments that have had an impact on so many people’s lives, Dr. Koprowski was invited to join the list of previous Sabin Gold Medal recipients, which includes some of the foremost contributors to the modern era of public health. Reproduced in this booklet is a tribute to Dr. Koprowski made by Stanley Prusiner, MD, and Stanley Plotkin, MD, as well as Dr. Koprowski’s personal reflections, and some amusing illustrations created by Manuel Covarrubias, a talented member of Dr. Koprowski’s laboratory team. From the time of its creation in 1994, the Sabin Gold Medal and this awards ceremony gained immediate international recognition. We would not be able to do it, however, without the support of our sponsors, to whom I want to express our deepest thanks. This year they are GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Sanofi Pasteur, and Wyeth. These corporations have been loyal partners and supporters of our Institute for many years, and deserve our heartfelt thanks. I hope you will be appropriately entertained and informed by this booklet, which is offered as a commemorative of the 2007 Sabin Gold Medal event. Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD 2 HILARY KOPROWSKI, MD 2007 ALBERT B. SABIN GOLD MEDAL RECIPIENT orn in Warsaw, Poland, Dr. Hilary Koprowski Bwas interested in both music and science, and has excelled in both arenas. He initially received a degree in piano from the Warsaw Conservatory, and then an MD degree in1939 from the University of Warsaw. Dr. Koprowski then began to dedicate himself to conducting scientific research, although he continued to study music. He graduated from the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome in 1940, and then went to Brazil. Soon he moved to the United States where he eventually became the Director of The Wistar Institute in 1957. There he revived a venerable, but decaying institution and made it a leading research center for the investigation of cancer and viral diseases. He also recruited top biologists from literally all parts of the world. Dr. Koprowski is one of the outstanding scientists of our time. His research is responsible for a variety of remarkable clinical advances in human and animal immunology and virology during his 50-year scientific career. Among Dr. Koprowski’s most notable achievements have been the development of a live oral poliomyelitis vaccine, which was the first such vaccine to be used in mass trials. Dr. Koprowski, along with his co- workers, also engineered a more effective and less painful rabies vaccine than the traditional Pasteur technique. In addition, Dr. Koprowski has been a pioneer in the development of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), which are used to detect cancer antigens and in cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Koprowski is the author of more than 850 scientific papers and is a member of many prestigious societies. He has also received honorary degrees from numerous universities, and is the recipient of many honors, including the Philadelphia Award, the Scott Award, and the French Legion of Honor. Dr. Koprowski is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Currently, he is the Director of the Institute of Biotechnology and Advanced Molecular Medicine, as well as the Center for Neurovirology at Thomas Jefferson University. In addition to his scientific and musical interests, including a serious devotion to musical composition, Hilary Koprowski is a linguist and a student of world literature who appreciates such diverse writers as Arthur Rimbaud, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, John Ford, Pietro Arentino, and H.L. Mencken. 3 HONOREE SALUTE Stanley B. Prusiner, MD and Stanley A. Plotkin, MD This is a grand occasion—the award of the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal to Hilary Koprowski. Hilary is a giant in the field of vaccinology, and it is most fitting to bestow this honor on him. Hilary is very special to all of us, and we applaud and honor him. He is an extraordinary human being, and we love him. Hilary Koprowski’s life is a celebration of humanity, dignity, and achievement in the sciences, languages, literature, arts and music. Hilary represents the pinnacle to which we all aspire. In summarizing Hilary’s journeys and his accomplishments, I have chosen to borrow from Stanley Plotkin’s beautiful tribute to Hilary on the occasion of Hilary’s 90th birthday celebration last December in Philadelphia: “Beginning his life-long interest in music, Hilary graduated in Piano from the Warsaw Conservatory. In 1939, he was forced to leave Poland and went to Italy where he continued his musical studies at the Conservatorio Di Musica St. Cecilia in Rome. Once again, he was forced to move—this time emigrating to Brazil where he joined the Yellow Fever Laboratory of the Rockefeller Institute and began his work in Virology. In 1944, the opportunity arose to come to the United States to work in Lederle Labs. There, he began his studies on rabies and polio. —It is not an exaggeration to say that no one since Louis Pasteur has done more to advance the prevention of rabies than Hilary. At successive institutions—Lederle, Wistar, and Jefferson, he developed attenuated vaccines for humans and animals, inactivated cell culture vaccines for humans, an antibody for passive immunization, a vector vaccine to immunize wild animals through the use of baits, and rabies antigens in transgenic plants. Any one of these advances would have been monumental—that one man should have been responsible for all is incredible! Thousands of people owe their lives to Hilary. 4 —Of course, the accomplishments in rabies are only rivaled by his accomplishments in polio research. As early as the late 1940’s, Hilary was working on the attenuation of polio virus, at a time when relatively little was known about the virus, let alone its attenuation. Despite a history of dangerous mistakes by others, Hilary proceeded to adapt a type 2 polio strain to mouse brain, which resulted in an attenuated virus that he fed first to himself and then to susceptible children in 1950. Subsequently, other strains were developed in his laboratory and tested in humans. In 1957, those strains were given by mass immunization to inhabitants of the then Belgian Congo, where polio was endemic. This development of an oral polio vaccine prefigured the work of Albert Sabin, and has ultimately led to the near eradication of polio from the world. —The largest part of Hilary’s career has been spent at The Wistar Institute where for 35 years he was Director. I can attest to the fact that somehow Hilary was able to continue his own work while Hilary Koprowski and Stanley B. Prusiner running a tight ship and yet allowing each Wistar scientist to develop and express his or her creativity. During that tenure and since 1992 at Jefferson Medical College, he has produced ground-breaking work in multiple fields, of which I have time only to list the following: monoclonal antibodies against infectious agents and cancers; anti-idiotypic antibodies; etiology and treatment of multiple sclerosis; viruses transmitted by insects; slow viruses; SV40 virus; subacute sclerosing panencephalitis; viruses causing cancer; and even SARS virus. All of this has been accomplished together with a semi- professional musical career and a profound interest in art and literature. 5 —Of course, his career has been recognized by multiple awards. In this case, the cliché that there are too many to mention is true. Among them are awards from the governments of Poland, Finland, France, and Belgium, as well as awards from the City of Philadelphia, and membership in the National Academy of Sciences. This phenomenon called “Hilary Koprowski” has now reached the grand old age of 90 with grace and without losing the enthusiasm of youth. I am reminded of a phrase by Victor Hugo, ‘One sees flames in the eyes of the young, but in the eyes of the old one sees light.’ ” Dr. Plotkin’s magnificent tribute to Hilary captures the extraordinary list of remarkable accomplishments that punctuate Hilary’s life. Hilary looked ahead to big problems, and he wanted to solve them. He pursued a big problem for nearly two decades until he, Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk nearly eradicated polio from our planet.
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