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Hi, a listener note.

A scientist race to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus,

we're bringing back our 2018 series about the race to cure polio.

We hope you find it as relevant and ultimately as hopeful as we do.

A Johns Hopkins University in the mid-1940s, a team of researchers are on the fast track to perfecting a polio vaccine.

This alone is enough to make them stand out, but what truly sets them apart is Isabel Morgan.

Morgan is in her late 30s and an independent and original thinker.

As a former boss puts it, she's a woman who refuses to accept so-called establishment statements of fact,

unless they are proved valid beyond any doubt in her own mind.

And she's on the cusp of a momentous discovery.

Notice anything?

This morning Morgan is standing next to one of the cages containing a test monkey.

Her colleague, David Bodian, looks at the monkey and then at Morgan, perplexed.

Besides the smell of formaldehyde and monkey fur, look at Bodzo.

Does he look healthy to you?

Bodzo, the monkey does indeed look healthy, quite the feat, considering what he's been through.

I've been growing polio virus in monkey brains and spinal cords, the nervous tissue.

Exactly.

Next, I introduced formaldehyde to the virus samples.

The formaldehyde inactivated the virus.

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