[quote] From Wikipedia:
Salk became ambitious for his own lab and was finally granted one at the University of Pittsburgh. However, he was disappointed. The lab they had given him was much smaller than he had hoped and the university forced him to conform to many rules which stunted his research as a beginning virologist.[25]
In 1948, Harry Weaver, the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), which later became known as the March of Dimes, contacted Salk. He asked Salk to join the fight against polio and research/confirm how many polio types there were. At the time, scientists had discovered three; they wanted to know if there were any more types. Although this type of polio research would be repetitious, boring, and time-consuming, the National Foundation agreed to pay for additional space, equipment and researchers. Once the research was finished, Salk would be able to keep the facilities and continue his previous work.
Because Salk desperately needed space, he joined the fight. For the first year, he gathered supplies and researchers. Dr. Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, Dr. L. James Lewis and secretary Lorraine Friedman joined Salk’s team as well.[26] Youngner remembers this period:
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Obviously done for the joy of science.
BTW, the March of Dimes spent the equivalent of about $3 Billion 2013 dollars on treatment and research of Polio from the 1930s to 1955.
