Howard Atkinson Howe (July 29, 1901 – December 22, 1976) was an American physician, whose work at the Johns Hopkins medical institutions helped to lay the groundwork for the Salk polio vaccine.

A native of Wabash, Indiana who credited a high school teacher in Indianapolis with arousing his interest in biology, Howe attended Butler University and graduated from Yale University in 1925.

In 1929, he graduated from the Hopkins medical school and remained there serving in a number of faculty posts.

Howe had started the original polio program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1937 and remained as a director of the laboratory when it was transferred to the School of Hygiene arid Public Health in 1942.

[3] Dr. David Bodian, professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the medical school, who for a number of years directed the program with Dr. Howe, described him as "rigorous" and using an "objective approach" in the laboratory, but as a "somewhat romantic" person with cultural and artistic interests who was prized for his personal qualities and was "quite unlike what people think of as a researcher.”[4] In 1942, Dr. Howe was a winner of the first E. Mead Johnson Award and in 1958 was named to the Polio Hall of Fame of the National Foundation in Warm Springs, Ga. His work had also resulted in a number of awards from local groups including a McCormick Unsung Hero award.