In 1949, a team of Harvard researchers led by Dr. John F. Enders found that the poliovirus could be grown in non-neural tissue cultures. Their discovery not only made for a cleaner preparation of poliovirus, without the contaminants associated with monkey spinal tissue, but also paved the way for new analytical and production methods.

Enders, Dr. Thomas Weller and Dr. Frederick Robbins would later receive the 1954 Nobel Prize for their contribution to virology.