Hilary Koprowski

Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski in Warsaw (2007)
Born	(1916-12-05)5 December 1916 Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland
Died	11 April 2013(2013-04-11) (aged 96) Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Citizenship	United States
Nationality	Polish
Fields	Virology
Known for	Polio vaccine
Notable awards	Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal(2007)
Spouse	Irena Koprowska (neé Grasberg) (m. 1938; 2 children)

Hilary Koprowski (5 December 1916 – 11 April 2013) was a Polish virologist and immunologist active in the United States, and inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine.

He authored or co-authored over 875 scientific papers and co-edited several scientific journals.

Koprowski received many academic honors and national decorations, including the Belgian Order of the Lion, the French Order of Merit and Legion of Honour, Finland's Order of the Lion, and Poland's Order of Merit.

Koprowski was the target of accusations in the press in the "OPV AIDS hypothesis", an allegation long refuted by evidence showing that the HIV-1 virus was introduced to humans long before his polio-vaccine trials were conducted in Africa. The case was settled out of court with a formal apology from Rolling Stone magazine.

Hilary Koprowski was born in Warsaw to an educated Jewish family. His parents met in 1906 when Paweł Koprowski (1882-1957) was serving in the Russian Army, and moved to Warsaw soon after their marriage in 1912. His mother Sonia (née Berland; 1883-1967), was a dentist from Berdichev. Hilary Koprowski attended Warsaw's Mikołaj Rej Secondary School, and from age twelve he took piano lessons at the Warsaw Conservatory. He received a medical degree from Warsaw University in 1939. He also received music degrees from the Warsaw Conservatory and, in 1940, from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. He adopted scientific research as his life's work, but never gave up music and composed several musical works. In July 1938, while in medical school, Koprowski married Irena Grasberg.