Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979)

Awarded the Prize “for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases.”

British biochemist. Chain was born on June 19, 1906, in Berlin. He graduated in 1930 from the Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Berlin. In 1933, he emigrated to England and worked at the School of Biochemistry, Cambridge. In 1935 he was invited to Oxford to work in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. In 1948 he became Scientific Director of the International Research Centre for Chemical Microbiology at the Instituto Superiore di Sanité, Rome. In 1961, he became Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College, University of London. Chain died on August 12, 1979 in Ireland.