Nobel Prize

I was born in Brooklyn in 1922. Both my mother and father were Russian Jewish emigrants who came to America in the early 1900’s. My father was a tailor and my mother, a housewife. Though of limited education themselves, they instilled in me the values of intellectual achievement and the use of whatever talents I…

Schack August Steenberg Krogh was born at Grenaa, Jutland, Denmark, on November 15, 1874. He was the son of Viggo Krogh, shipbuilder, and Marie, née Drechmann. Even as a schoolboy August was much interested in the natural sciences and spent a great deal of his time in experimentation. He was greatly stimulated by his teacher…

My twin sister Paola and I were born in Turin on April 22, 1909, the youngest of four children. Our parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a talented painter and an exquisite human being. Our older brother Gino, who died twelve years ago of a heart attack, was…

Archibald Vivian Hill was born in Bristol on September 26,1886. His early education was at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, whence he obtained scholarships to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he studied mathematics and took the Mathematical Tripos, being Third Wrangler (1907). After graduating, he was urged to take up physiology by his teacher, Dr. (later Sir) Walter…

Carl Ferdinand Cori was born in Prague on December 5th, 1896. His father, Dr. Carl I. Cori, was Director of the Marine Biological Station in Trieste, and it was here that young Carl spent his childhood. He received an early introduction to science from his father and this was stimulated on summer visits to the…

Gerty Theresa Cori, née Radnitz, was born in Prague on August 15th, 1896. She received her primary education at home before entering a Lyceum for girls in 1906; she graduated in 1912 and studied for the University entrance examination, which she took and passed at the Tetschen Realgymnasium in 1914. She entered the Medical School…

André Frédéric Cournand was born in Paris on 24th September, 1895, the second of the four children of Jules Cournand, a stomatologist, and his wife Marguérite Weber. He received his early education to secondary school level at the Lycée Condorcet, and obtained his bachelor’s degree at the Faculté des Lettres of the Sorbonne in 1913,…

My parents went from the north of Scotland to South Africa shortly before World War I. My mother had been a teacher and my father was an engineer with the Post Office. I was born in Johannesburg in 1924, the youngest of three children. My family moved around the country quite a lot, as did…

Bernardo Alberto Houssay was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 10, 1887, one of the eight children of Dr. Albert and Clara (née Laffont) Houssay, who had come to Argentina from France. His father was a barrister. His early education was at a private school, the Colegio Británico. He then entered the School of…

Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann was born in Berlin on August 29, 1904, the son of Julius Forssmann and Emmy Hindenberg. He was educated at the Askanische Gymnasium (secondary grammar school) in Berlin. Leaving school in 1922, he went to the University of Berlin to study medicine, passing his State Examination in 1929. For his clinical…