Scientist Gu Fangzhou passed away in Beijing on January 2 at the age of 92. He developed China's first polio vaccines; in particular the Sugar Ball attenuated oral vaccine.

Gu started polio research in 1957 and created the Sugar Ball attenuated oral vaccine in 1959. To check the function on humans, he and his colleagues voluntarily became the first group of people to take the vaccine. Implementation of a countrywide immunization strategy eradicated the indigenous polio strain by 1994. Poliomyelitis has since been effectively controlled, with China being declared polio-free by the World Health Organization in October 2000.

Gu, from Ningbo of east China's Zhejiang Province, graduated from today's Peking University Health Science Center in 1950. He was deputy director of the Institute of Medical Biology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) from 1964 to 1971. Gu served as President of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College from 1985 to 1993 and Chairman of the Beijing Association for Science and Technology from 1991 to 1997.