“…. a story of comebacks, coming back and what a beautiful day in the neighborhood can mean.“ –Barb Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A wry and funny tale about the fulfillment found in coming home… A cross between Woody Allen and Fred Rogers, (Kurlander) reminds us that our cities are the real “Real America“ because they are the creative, connected places in which we can best renew ourselves, our country, and our hope for all humanity.“ — Howard Fineman, Newsweek

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The documentary The Shot Felt Round The World began when Carl and his students at the University of Pittsburgh filmed the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine speaking with Dr. Peter Salk, the eldest son of Jonas, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Polio: An American Story David Oshinsky, those who worked alongside Jonas Salk in the lab, and many polio pioneers who were amongst to take the then experimental polio vaccine.

“Shot” won Best Documentary at the San Luis Obispo Film Festival and was then picked up by the Smithsonian Channel where Kurlander and Smithsonian producer Charles Poe were able to film an addition interview with Bill Gates who connected the development of the Salk vaccine to today’s efforts to end polio and combat infectious disease.

That one hour TV program, A Shot To Save The World, won the 2015 CINE Golden Eagle Award for Best Science Program and was shown around the world including in prime time on the BBC as The Polio Story: The Vaccine That Change the World.

In summer 2020, Kurlander appeared on CBS Sunday Morning  on this story How The Fight Against Polio Was Won     in which he and Dr. Paul Duprex, the director of UPMC’s Center for Vaccine Research, paralleled the development of the Salk vaccine to present day efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine.   That has led to a new vaccine education program which will premiere in 2021.

That piece came from an article Kurlander wrote on The Deadly Polio Epidemic and Why It Matters for Coronavirus.

Kurlander wrote a subsequent article on Lessons from how the polio vaccine went from lab to the public that Americans Can learn from today with his collaborator Dr. Randy Juhl.

In addition to these films and articles, Kurlander also pioneer a vaccine education program, Take A Shot At Changing the World, a viral video contest in which young people were encouraged to use the polio film to make their own videos on vaccines.

A CBS Sunday Morning News story on How We Won The Fight On Polio featuring Dr. Paul Duprex, the Jonas Salk Chair and director of Pitt’s Center for Vaccine Research, and Kurlander has led to a new film, Chasing Covid, which seeks to demystify how vaccines are made and distributed and to address issues of vaccine hesitancy.

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How The Fight Against Polio Was Won

Realizing the collective effort it would take to defeat this new unseen enemy, Duprex and Kurlander began to talk about creating an education film which would help educators better explain the process of making a vaccine today versus 65 years ago when Jonas Salk and his team developed the world’s first polio vaccine.    Working with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Creativity, a new thirty-minute vaccine education film has been made, Chasing Covid, documenting present day efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine framed by the development of the Salk polio vaccine.

The program has been designed with educators input to help teachers in schools talk about the history of vaccines, how a vaccine is developed in the lab (and the difference today versus 65 years ago when Salk made his vaccine), how it is tested on animals and humans, and the challenges of distribution a vaccine globally, including concerns about vaccine hesitancy and equity.

Chasing Covid will premiere globally on April 12, 2021, the 66th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine being declared “Safe and effective.” (Details to be announced soon, but email ckpa@pitt.edu to be notified.)

Also in April will be the launch of the Take a Shot At Taking the World viral video contest where students can create and make their own short videos (under 3 minutes) to help good informations about vaccines “go viral.”     (A similar contest was done in 2012 based on The Shot Felt Round The World.  Click here for details about that previous contest.)

For more on lessons to be learned from polio for coronavirus, read How lessons from the distribution of the Salk polio vaccine can help us with coronavirus today  an article Carl co-authored with Dr. Randy Juhl, distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Pharmacy at University of Pittsburgh.

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