Ernst Boris Chain Biography

Sir Ernst Boris Chain was a biochemist whose works earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945. He jointly won the award with the fellow scientists Sir Alexander Fleming and Sir Howard Walter Florey. The trio was instrumental in developing the world’s first antibiotic, penicillin, which proved to be of immense use in the treatment of wounded soldiers during the World War II. Ernst Boris Chain developed an interest for chemistry from a young age and subsequently completed his graduation in Chemistry and Physiology from the Friedrich Wilhelm University. He later engaged in research work at the Institute of Pathology, Charité Hospital in Berlin, until he was forced to shift to England due to anti-semitic policies of Hitler. He worked in different capacities at Cambridge, Oxford University, and at the University of London. Towards the later part of his career he served as the Director of the International Research Centre for Chemical Microbiology, Superior Institute of Health, in Rome. He along with pathologist Howard Florey isolated and worked on pencillin, which was found by Alexander Fleming almost a decade earlier. The duo was successfully able to identify its antibiotic properties. Post his retirement, he continued delivering lectures.