Nobel Prize

Luis F. Leloir was born in Paris of Argentine parents on September 6, 1906 and has lived in Buenos Aires since he was two years old. He graduated as a Medical Doctor in the University of Buenos Aires in 1932 and started his scientific career at the Institute of Physiology working with Professor Bernardo A.…

Bruce Merrifield was born in Fort Worth, Texas, July 15, 1921, the only son of George E. and Lorene (Lucas) Merrifield. In the spring of 1923 they drove across the southwest desert to settle in California where they lived in several cities throughout the state. He attended nine grade schools and two high schools before…

I was born in Montreal in 1939, the second son of poor immigrants. My mother worked in a textile mill and my father in a grocery store before they met and married. It was from them that I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments.…

Grandfather Josef, a shoemaker, immigrated to the U.S. from Bohemia in 1913. My other grandparents, also of Czech origin, were first-generation Americans. My father was and is a physician, my mother the homemaker. I was born in Chicago on December 8, 1947. The safe streets and good schools of Iowa City, Iowa provided the backdrop…

I was born on a bitter cold morning (20º F below zero) in Sioux City (Iowa) on January 22, 1936. I was told that when my father went out in the cold that morning to go to the hospital to visit his wife and newborn first son, his car would not start. Despite advice to…

I was born a Kiwi (a New Zealander) in Masterton, New Zealand on April 14, 1927, and still am a Kiwi by New Zealand law, although I became a naturalized United States citizen many years ago in order to have the right to vote in US elections and, hence, voice my political opinions in a…

For the ten years from the third grade of elementary school to the end of high school, I lived in the small city of Takayama, a town of less than sixty thousand, located in the middle of Honshu, Japan. Even though it was far away from Japan’s principal cities, Takayama has been called a “little…

William Ramsay was born in Glasgow on October 2, 1852, the son of William Ramsay, C.E. and Catherine, née Robertson. He was a nephew of the geologist, Sir Andrew Ramsay. Until 1870 he studied in his native town, following this with a period in Fittig’s laboratory at Tübingen until 1872. While there his thesis on…

Wilhelm Ostwald was born on September 2, 1853, in Riga, Latvia, as the son of master-cooper Gottfried Wilhelm Ostwald and Elisabith Leuckel. He was educated at the “Real gymnasium” there and in 1872 was admitted to Dorpat University to read chemistry. After taking his final examinations three years later, he obtained the post of assistant…

Otto Wallach was born on March 27, 1847, in Königsberg, Germany, the son of Gerhard Wallach and his wife, née Otillie Thoma. His father was a high-ranking civil servant, who later became Auditor General at Potsdam. During his early school years at the humanistic “Gymnasium” at Potsdam, Wallach had a profound liking for history and…