A key period in Fogarty’s history burnished the reputation of the NIH… and the US
May/June 2025 | Volume 24 Number 3
Photo courtesy of the National Endownment for the Humanities
Dr. Albert Sabin gives his oral polio vaccine to a child
When World War II ended, the nations of Europe were devastated, their populations starving, their science set back for years. In 1948, the U.S. implemented the European Recovery Program—popularly known as the “Marshall Plan”—to provide financial and material assistance in Western Europe. A decade later, NIH launched the International Research Fellowship (IRF) program, to strengthen European capacity to conduct biomedical research. In 1968, management of this program was transferred to the newly established Fogarty International Center.
IRF aimed to develop a cadre of foreign investigators who trained at American universities and the NIH before returning to Europe’s academic and research centers. The program’s American mentors included renowned scientists and future
Nobel laureates such as Drs. Christian Anfinson, Julius Axelrod, David Baltimore, Baruj Benacerraf, Arthur Kornberg, and Severo Ochoa. Following this program, most IRF fellows pursued careers in research, teaching and administration in Europe, often maintaining close contact with their U.S. colleagues. Over three decades, IRF trained more than 2,500 scientists from 55 countries at a total cost of just $50 million.
In 1969, Fogarty established a new program of workshops and conferences and founded the Scholars in Residence, or SIR, program to foster international collaboration.
Dr. Ken Bridbord, senior scientist emeritus at Fogarty, noted that “the Scholars-in-Residence Program was driven by NIH’s interests and the desire to bring the best and brightest scientists to NIH to collaborate with its intramural scientists.” At any given time, half a dozen internationally recognized scientists lived in Stone House on the NIH campus, where they held seminars and workshops, wrote books, and conducted research in collaboration with NIH colleagues. Fogarty’s SIR program hosted more than 200 scientists, including Dr. Margaret Mead and Nobel prize winners Drs. Daniel Bovet, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Sir Hans Krebs and Ragnar Granit.
Bridbord said, “Dr. Albert Sabin, though not part of the SIR program, worked at Fogarty for four years in the early 1980s. While here, he focused on eliminating both polio and measles.” Sabin, who immigrated to the U.S. as a teen, developed an oral polio vaccine. He worked with governments, Rotary International, and the WHO to incorporate annual vaccination programs into routine health services in developing countries. Notably, he never patented his vaccine, wanting to keep its price low so it could be used as widely as possible. Sabin’s work led to the elimination of polio in the Western Hemisphere by 1993.
In 1988 Bridbord designed Fogarty’s first HIV training program, the AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP). “The program was greatly influenced by an
IOM report chaired by David Baltimore, which spoke to the responsibility of high-income countries to help low- and middle- income countries build the capacity to respond to the emerging pandemic of HIV/AIDS.” AITRP, which trained more than 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, ended in 2011.
Since its founding more than 55 years ago, Fogarty has designed a variety of programs for training thought leaders who've then contributed to scientific knowledge and to people's health, both globally and in the U.S.
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Updated June 2, 2025
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