Ernst Chain

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Ernst Boris Chain
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Sir

Ernst Chain

FRSA
Chain in 1945
Born
Ernst Boris Chain

(1906-06-19)19 June 1906
Berlin, German Empire
Died12 August 1979(1979-08-12) (aged 73)
Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland
CitizenshipGerman (until 1939)
British (from 1939)
Alma mater
Known forDiscovery of penicillin
Spouse
​
(m. 1948)​
Children3[1]
AwardsNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1945)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1948)
Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1954)
Knight Bachelor (1969)
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
InstitutionsImperial College London
University of Cambridge
University of Oxford
Istituto Superiore di Sanità
University College Hospital

Sir Ernst Boris Chain

FRSA[2] (19 June 1906 – 12 August 1979) was a German-born British biochemist and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Life and career

Oxford University
in 1944
Ernst Chain in his laboratory.

Chain was born in Berlin, the son of Margarete (

Jewish figures in Babylonia.[16] He was a lifelong friend of Professor Albert Neuberger
, whom he met in Berlin in the 1930s.

After the Nazis came to power, Chain understood that, being Jewish, he would no longer be safe in Germany. He left Germany and moved to England, arriving on 2 April 1933 with £10 in his pocket. Geneticist and physiologist J. B. S. Haldane helped him obtain a position at University College Hospital, London.

After a couple of months he was accepted as a PhD student at

tumour metabolism, lysozymes, and biochemistry techniques. Chain was naturalised as a British subject in April 1939.[17]

In 1939, he joined Howard Florey to investigate natural antibacterial agents produced by microorganisms. This led him and Florey to revisit the work of Alexander Fleming, who had described penicillin nine years earlier. Chain and Florey went on to discover penicillin's therapeutic action and its chemical composition. Chain and Florey discovered how to isolate and concentrate the germ-killing agent in penicillin. For this research, Chain, Florey, and Fleming received the Nobel Prize in 1945.

Along with Edward Abraham he was also involved in theorising the beta-lactam structure of penicillin in 1942,[18] which was confirmed by X-ray crystallography done by Dorothy Hodgkin in 1945. Towards the end of World War II, Chain learned his mother and sister had been killed by the Nazis. After World War II, Chain moved to Rome, to work at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Superior Institute of Health). He returned to Britain in 1964 as the founder and head of the biochemistry department at Imperial College London, where he stayed until his retirement, specialising in fermentation technologies.[19]

On 17 March 1948 Chain was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1948, he married

Max Beloff, John Beloff and Nora Beloff, and a biochemist of significant standing herself. In his later life, his Jewish identity became increasingly important to him. Chain was an ardent Zionist and he became a member of the board of governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science at Rehovot in 1954, and later a member of the executive council. He raised his children securely within the Jewish faith, arranging much extracurricular tuition for them. His views were expressed most clearly in his speech 'Why I am a Jew' given at the World Jewish Congress Conference of Intellectuals in 1965.[3]

Chain was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1969 Birthday Honours.[20]

Chain died in 1979 at the Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, Ireland. The Imperial College London biochemistry building is named after him,[19] as is a road in Castlebar.[15]

See also

References

  1. ISSN 0262-4079.[permanent dead link
    ]
  2. JSTOR 769796
    .
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30913. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. PMID 10994820
    .
  5. S2CID 54397485
    .
  6. PMID 11638360
    .
  7. PMID 7000741
    .
  8. PMID 399328
    .
  9. PMID 393682
    .
  10. PMID 385104
    .
  11. S2CID 208792351
    .
  12. PMID 391241
    .
  13. ^ "Ernst B. Chain". Nobel Foundation. 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  14. ISBN 9780799209501
    .
  15. ^ a b "Who was Sir Ernst Chain?". Connaught Telegraph. 6 October 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
  16. ^ Eliezer Laine and Zalman Berger, Avnei Chein - Toldot Mishpachat Chein, Brooklyn, New-York, 2004. Amazon link to book info
  17. ^ "No. 34622". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 May 1939. p. 2989.
  18. ISSN 0080-4606
    .
  19. ^ a b Martineau, Natasha (5 November 2012). "Sir Ernst Chain is honoured in building naming ceremony". Imperial College London. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  20. ^ "No. 44894". The London Gazette. 11 July 1969. p. 7213.

Bibliography

  • Medawar, Jean; Pyke, David (2012). Hitler's Gift: The True Story of the Scientists Expelled by the Nazi Regime (Paperback). New York: Arcade Publishing.
    ISBN 978-1-61145-709-4
    .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ernst Boris Chain.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Ernst Chain.
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