David Bodian

David Bodian's bust in the Polio Hall of Fame

David Bodian (born May 15, 1910 in St. Louis , † September 18, 1992 in Baltimore ) was an American physician and scientist at the medical school of Johns Hopkins University , who worked in polio research . In the early 1940s he helped lay the foundations for Salk and Sabin's polio vaccinations .

biography

David Bodian was born in St. Louis to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. He grew up in Chicago and attended the state school there. In 1929 he began studying at the University of Chicago and graduated in 1931, the bachelor's degree in zoology from 1934 he received a doctorate in anatomy to Dr. phil. ( Ph. D. ) and finally acquired the Dr. med. ( MD ). After a few months at the University of Michigan on a National Research Council Fellowship , he joined Johns Hopkins University in 1939 as a Research Fellow in Anatomy. This was the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Howard Howe, although in 1941 Bodian initially took on an assistant professorship in anatomy for a few months at the Medical Faculty of Western Reserve University in Cleveland , Ohio .

When the National Polio Foundation granted funding to the Johns Hopkins University Epidemiological Department to advance polio research, Bodian returned to Baltimore and he and Howe joined the Department of Hygiene and Public Health to continue their research. In 1946 Bodian rose from assistant professor to associate professor of epidemiology, and in 1957 he became full professor and dean of anatomy. When he accepted the position of emeritus for anatomy and neurobiology in the ENT department in 1977, he headed a laboratory for electronic microscopy .

In 1944 David Bodian married Elinor Widmont, an illustrator and painter who contributed drawings to some of his publications. They had five children. Bodian died in September 1992 of complications from Parkinson's disease .

Pioneering work in the fight against polio

The Hopkin team led by Howard Howe, David Bodian and, since 1946, Isabel Morgan made some discoveries that were of decisive importance for the development of a polio vaccine. They found that there are three basic immunological types ( serotypes ) of poliovirus, which explains why secondary infections occurred and why artificially induced immunity to one type did not protect against infection with another. Her publication on "Differentiating Types of Poliovirus" in the American Journal of Hygiene in 1949 was a milestone in the development of new polio vaccination methods.

Thus, the contributions of Bodian, Howes and Morgan formed the scientific basis for the later development of Salk and Sabin's vaccines . Bodian herself summarized her performance as follows:

1) clarification of the pathogenesis and pathology of poliovirus in chimpanzees, other monkeys, and humans; 2) the introduction of the chimpanzee to polio research as a model for study of the disease in humans; 3) evidence that test primates and humans can be successfully infected with formalin-treated viruses and that immunity in monkeys is related to the presence of antibody serum; 4) the discovery of the three basic immunological types of polioviruses. These results were crucial in preparing for vaccine development; 5) evidence of the viremic phase of poliovirus infection in the period prior to the onset of symptoms, and its connection with poliovirus infestation of the central nervous system; and 6) proof that the smallest doses of antibody serum are sufficient to protect against infestation of the central nervous system with polioviruses after the administration of viruses.

Honors and prizes

In 1941, Bodian received the E. Mead-Johnson Prize for Pediatrics from the American Society for Pediatrics. In January 1858, he was inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs, Georgia, along with colleagues Morgan and Howe and twelve other polio researchers (see photo above). He was admitted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1958 , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968, and the American Philosophical Society in 1973. He was awarded the Karl-Spencer-Lashley Prize by her in 1985 .

Bodian was an honorary member of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the Mexican Society of Anatomy, and he was President of the American Association of Anatomists from 1971 to 1972.

In 1980, Johns Hopkins University named the Bodian Room after him in recognition of his contributions to polio research. Some of the university's lecturers now have the title of David Bodian Professor . Bodian received an honorary doctorate from the university in 1987 and, a year before his death, in 1991, the Department of Hygiene and Public Health named him one of the seventy-five "Public Health Heroes."

Individual evidence

1. ↑ David Bodian, et al .: “ Differentiation of Types of Poliomyelitis Viruses: III. The Grouping of Fourteen Strains into Three Basic Immunological Types "in:" American Journal of Hygiene "vol. 49 March 1949
2. ^ A letter to A. McGehee Harvey contained in the " David Bodian Collection, The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions "

literature

• David Oshinsky : Polio: An American Story . Oxford University Press, 2005 ISBN 0195152948 .
• Elizabeth Fee, Manon Perry: David Bodian in: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 150, NO. 1, March 2006 pp.167-172, also as a PDF file