Julius Youngner

Julius S. Youngner (24 October 1920 – 27 April 2017) was an American Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Medicine and Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at University of Pittsburgh responsible for advances necessary for development of a vaccine for poliomyelitis and the first intranasal equine influenza vaccine.

Youngner survived many infections as a young child which left him with a lifelong interest in infectious disease. After completing an undergraduate degree in English, he was trained in Biology at University of Michigan before being drafted into the Army. After the war, he joined the U.S. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health Cancer Institute before joining the Salk team responsible for polio vaccine.

As a member of the Jonas Salk research team, Youngner contributed in the development of polio vaccine, including techniques for large scale production of poliovirus and the rapid color test measurement of polio virus in living tissue. He is considered "one of the seminal figures in contemporary virology and it's been that way for more than 50 years" by Arthur S. Levine, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences at University of Pittsburgh. Research by Youngner and colleague Samuel Salvin was also responsible for the discovery of gamma interferon.

Youngner was an important early pioneer in vaccine development, testing, and government licensing of drugs before allowing them to market. He was critical of Cutter Laboratories virus manufacturing prior to deaths resulting from Cutter inactivated vaccine. He continued to promote research integrity and actions on misconduct until the end of his career.

Younger was born in 1920 in Manhattan, New York, where his father was a businessman. When he was seven-years-old Youngner was nearly killed by lobar pneumonia.

Youngner graduated Evander Childs High School, when he was 15 years old, and received a B.A. in English from New York University in 1939. After completing a Sc.D. degree in microbiology at the University of Michigan, Youngner stayed on as a faculty member, and left in 1947 to join the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda. Youngner was drafted into basic U.S. Army infantry training. Upon completion he screened at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and assigned to classified research at University of Rochester School of Medicine on uranium salts. The effects of inhaled uranium salts on human tissue was important to the war effort, related to purification of uranium for nuclear research and weapons. Youngner never knew the research was related to weapons until the end of the war. He thought nuclear energy would be used for planes or submarines for transportation.^{[dead link]}

In 1949, Youngner moved to the University of Pittsburgh to pursue virology at and, subsequently, to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine for the rest of his career. In 1960 he was appointed professor of microbiology. Between 1985 and 1989, he was chairman of the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Working on polio prevention, he was responsible for three key advancements in poliomyelitis vaccine development. 1. He proved a method for separation of monkey kidney cells, which led to techniques for large scale production. 2. He developed a process to prevent infection while retaining ability to vaccinate, and 3. safety testing for batches of vaccine and anti-polio antibodies in test subjects. or in the words of his colleague: "“Juli figured out how to grow the virus, how to inactivate it, and then he figured how to test the immune response to see if it worked.”

Youngner demonstrated the separation of monkey kidney cells using the pancreatic enzyme trypsin, a technique previously proven by the Rockefeller Institute could be applied to high titer virus stocks. Applying this method to a single kidney "could produce enough raw material for 6000 shots of polio vaccine." This advance in production of virus raw material directly led to vaccine viability.