Ernst Chain
Sir Ernst Chain FRSA | |
---|---|
Born | Ernst Boris Chain 19 June 1906 |
Died | 12 August 1979 Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland | (aged 73)
Citizenship | German (until 1939) British (from 1939) |
Alma mater | |
Known for | Discovery of penicillin |
Spouse | |
Children | 3[1] |
Awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1945) Fellow of the Royal Society (1948) Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1954) Knight Bachelor (1969) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Biochemistry |
Institutions | Imperial College London University of Cambridge University of Oxford Istituto Superiore di Sanità University College Hospital |
Sir Ernst Boris Chain
Life and career
Chain was born in Berlin, the son of Margarete (
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
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
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
- ISSN 0262-4079.[permanent dead link]
- JSTOR 769796.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30913. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- PMID 10994820.
- S2CID 54397485.
- PMID 11638360.
- PMID 7000741.
- PMID 399328.
- PMID 393682.
- PMID 385104.
- S2CID 208792351.
- PMID 391241.
- ^ "Ernst B. Chain". Nobel Foundation. 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
- ISBN 9780799209501.
- ^ a b "Who was Sir Ernst Chain?". Connaught Telegraph. 6 October 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
- ^ Eliezer Laine and Zalman Berger, Avnei Chein - Toldot Mishpachat Chein, Brooklyn, New-York, 2004. Amazon link to book info
- ^ "No. 34622". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 May 1939. p. 2989.
- ISSN 0080-4606.
- ^ a b Martineau, Natasha (5 November 2012). "Sir Ernst Chain is honoured in building naming ceremony". Imperial College London. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
- ^ "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
- Ernst Chain on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, 20 March 1946 The Chemical Structure of the Penicillins
- Weintraub, B. (August 2003). "Ernst Boris Chain (1906–1979) and Penicillin". Chemistry in Israel (13). Israel Chemical Society: 29–32.
- Ernst Chain at Find a Grave