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Revision as of 00:02, 10 September 2006
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is an independent non-profit educational research organization in La Jolla, California, founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, M.D., the developer of the polio vaccine. Among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick.
The institute has 56 labs and focuses its research in three areas: Molecular Biology and Genetics; Neurosciences; and Plant Biology. Research topics include cancer, diabetes, birth defects, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, AIDS, and plant biology.
The March of Dimes provided the initial funding and continues to support the institute. The campus was designed by Louis Kahn. Salk had sought to make a beautiful campus in order to draw the best researchers in the world. The original buildings of the Salk Institute were designated as a historical landmark in 1991.
The institute currently employs more than 1200 researchers and staff.
History
Salk and Kahn approached the city of San Diego in March 1960 about a gift of land on the Torrey Pines Mesa and were granted their request after a referendum in June 1960. Construction began in 1962 and a handful of researchers moved into the first laboratory in 1963.
Jonas Salk died in 1995. A memorial lies at the entrance to the Institute: "Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."