Albert Sabin - Life

Life

Sabin was born in Białystok, Russian Empire (today Poland), to Jewish parents, Jacob and Tillie Saperstein. In 1922 he immigrated with his family to America. In 1930 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and changed his name to Sabin.

Sabin received a medical degree from New York University in 1931. He trained in internal medicine, pathology and surgery at Bellevue Hospital in New York City from 1931-1933. In 1934 he conducted research at The Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine in England, then joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). During this time he developed an intense interest in research, especially in the area of infectious diseases. In 1939 he moved to Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. During World War II he was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and helped develop a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis. Maintaining his association with Children's Hospital, by 1946 he had also become the head of Pediatric Research at the University of Cincinnati. At Cincinnati's Children's Hospital, Sabin supervised the fellowship of Robert M. Chanock, whom he called his "star scientific son."

In 1969-1972 he lived and worked in Israel as the President of Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. After his return to the United States he worked (1974–1982) as a Research Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. He later moved to Washington, D.C. area where he was a Resident Scholar at the John E. Fogarty International Center on NIH campus in Bethesda, MD.