Nobel Prize

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…

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…

George Wells Beadle was born at Wahoo, Nebraska, U.S.A., October 22, 1903, the son of Chauncey Elmer Beadle, a farmer, and his wife Hattie Albro. George was educated at the Wahoo High School and might himself have become a farmer if one of his teachers at school had not directed his mind towards science and…

François Jacob was born in June 1920 in Nancy (France). He was the only son of Simon Jacob and Thérèse Franck. After attending the Lycée Carnot in Paris, he began studying medicine at the Faculty of Paris, with the intention of becoming a surgeon. These studies were interrupted by the war. In June 1940, when…

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…

Edward Lawrie Tatum was born on December 14th, 1909, at Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. He was the eldest son of Arthur Lawrie Tatum, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and Mabel Webb Tatum. After the death of his mother, his father married the former Celia Harriman. Tatum was educated at the University…

André Michel Lwoff was born on 8 May 1902 in Ainay-le-Château (Allier). He joined the Institut Pasteur at the age of 19. He had graduated in science and had done one year of medicine. Lwoff completed his studies while working in the laboratory. In 1921, he had the good fortune to study under a very…

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…

Joshua Lederberg was born in Montclair, N.J. on May 23, 1925. He was brought up in the Washington Heights District of Upper Manhattan, New York City, where he received his education in Public School 46, Junior High School 164 and Stuyvesant High School. From 1941 to 1944 he studied at Columbia College, where he obtained…