Nobel Prize

For biographical information on Robert G. Edwards, see the lecture ‘Robert Edwards: Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine’. Pdf 455 kB Robert G. Edwards died on 10 April 2013.

Memories of my early childhood are clouded with uncertainties because I was essentially separated from my parents since the early age of seven. I was born in Shanghai, China on April 6, 1920. My father had come there from Vienna, Austria after earning doctorates in law and business. My mother, born Renée Tapernoux, had arrived…

I was born in Lansing, Iowa on June 6, 1918, the third of the four children of William Carl Krebs and Louise Helen (Stegeman) Krebs. My maternal grandmother, Bertha Stegeman, lived with us for most of her life. My father was a Presbyterian minister, who had started his ministry in the Moravian Church in Wisconsin.…

My history is not atypical of many Americans: born in the midwest, educated in the East, and now living in the West. My early years were shared between Des Moines, Iowa and Cincinnati, Ohio. Shortly after I was born on May 28, 1942 in Des Moines, my father, Lawrence, was drafted into the United States…

Camillo Golgi was born at Corteno near Brescia on July 7, 1843, the son of a physician. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia under Mantegazza, Bizzozero and Oehl. After graduating in 1865 he continued to work in Pavia at the Hospital of St. Matteo. Golgi himself stated that Bizzozero greatly influenced him and…

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born on May 1, 1852, at Petilla de Aragón, Spain. As a boy he was apprenticed first to a barber and then to a cobbler. He himself wished to be an artist – his gift for draughtsmanship is evident in his published works. His father, however, who was Professor of…

Julius Wagner – his father Adolf Johann Wagner was granted the title “Ritter von Jauregg” only in 1883 – was born on March 7, 1857, in Wels, Austria. He attended the famous old Schottengymnasium in Vienna and started reading medicine at Vienna University in 1874. From 1874 to 1880 he studied with Salomon Stricker, in…

Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk was born on October 30, 1895, at Lagow, a beautiful, small town in the Brandenburg Marches. Until he was fourteen he went to school in Sommerfeld, where his father was assistant headmaster. His mother, Martha Reimer, came from farming stock in the Marches, where she lived in Sommerfeld until 1945 when…

Ernst Boris Chain was born on June 19, 1906, in Berlin, his father, Dr. Michael Chain, being a chemist and industrialist. He was educated at the Luisengymnasium, Berlin, where he soon became interested in chemistry, stimulated by visits to his father’s laboratory and factory. He next attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Berlin, where he graduated in…

Sir Howard Walter Florey was born on September 24, 1898, at Adelaide, South Australia, the son of Joseph and Bertha Mary Florey. His early education was at St. Peter’s Collegiate School, Adelaide, following which he went on to Adelaide University where he graduated M.B., B.S. in 1921. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen…