Barbara McClintock discovered transposable elements, or jumping genes, at Cold Spring Harbor, showing that genomes are dynamic and that DNA segments can move within them, work she did in maize and for which she won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology. Separately, virologists Enders, Weller, and Robbins developed a method to cultivate poliovirus in non-nervous tissue cultures at Boston Children's Hospital between 1949 and 1953, winning the 1954 Nobel Prize, and this bioprocessing breakthrough enabled Jonas Salk's team at the University of Pittsburgh to develop the polio vaccine around 1953. Salk himself never won a Nobel Prize, which the hosts attribute to friction between press coverage crediting him alone and the scientists who did the underlying virus cultivation work.
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The hosts note McClintock's maize work was previously covered in the show's James Watson and non-Mendelian genetics episodes.
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The hosts speculate the Nobel committee withheld recognition from Salk partly in reaction to newspaper articles crediting him individually for the vaccine.
397 words · auto-generated from the episode video
1:19:12>> 1948 we're still not out of the 40s discovery of the transposable of transposable genetic elements. >> Yes, this is Barbara Mcclin talk. Um she discovered jumping genes at Coltspring Harbor National Lab at in New York. Um we talked about that in the James Watson episode. >> She proved that genomes are dynamic and fluid. The DNA is not just one thing. You can have parts of the DNA element come out and go over here. Um, she did her experiments in maze, >> which is actually just corn. >> Yes. Which we talked about. >> She won the 1983 Nobel Prize in
1:19:53physiology. >> Our non-Mandelian genetics episode. If you want to know about genetics in maze, which is just corn, 1949 to 1953, uh, cultivation of polio virus and development of the vaccine. very controversial. Although it should not be although it should not be. It was also controversial even in this little thing because the viologists Enders Weller and Robins they successfully cultivate the polio virus in non- nervous tissue cultures at the children's hospital in Boston Massachusetts and they win the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology. One of the main things when you want to do vaccines is you want to actually cultivate the virus, right? You want to make multiple copies of the virus to
1:20:33then make downscaled versions of the virus to make the vaccine. These three guys are the guys who did it. The foundational bioprocessing breakthrough enabled Jonas Sulk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh to develop the vaccine about 10 years later or no about four years later in 1953 out of the University of Pittsburgh. Jonas Sulk never won the Nobel Prize. Um, even though he's really like unanimous with the polio vaccine. And I think it's because if you look on the left, there's a lot of these newspaper articles saying SulkQ made the vaccine. Sulk made the vaccine. It pissed off a lot of the science people who were like,
1:21:14well, you're not giving credit to these three viologists. So the Noble Committee, in order to clap back, they never gave SulkQ the vaccine, which look, I don't know, right? Like you should at least give him the vaccine for peace. I mean, sorry, the the Nobel Prize for peace like you did the green revolution guy, >> right? >> Anyways,