He was born in New York, New York and spent a majority of his professional life as a professor at the University of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. Jonas Salk's vaccine is credited with finding a cure for polio. Polio was a disease that can cause paralysis and weakness in your muscles. It was a communicable disease, meaning it could be spread easily from one human to another. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine in the early 1950's and it was first given to children in 1954. His vaccine wiped out the spread of the disease in the Americas. In his later years, Salk worked on finding a cure for AIDS. Jonas Salk died in June of 1995.
