Ernst Boris Chain

Infobox Scientist
name = Sir Ernst Boris Chain
box_width =


image_width =150px
caption = Ernst Boris Chain
birth_date = June 19, 1906
birth_place = Berlin
death_date = August 12, 1979
death_place =
residence =
citizenship = British
nationality = German
ethnicity =
field = biochemistry
work_institutions =
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for = penicillin
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
prizes = Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, 1945
religion =
footnotes =

Sir Ernst Boris Chain (June 19, 1906 – August 12, 1979) was a German-born British biochemist, and a 1945 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin.

Chain was born in Berlin to a Russian father who moved from his birthland to study chemistry abroad, and a German Berliner mother. In 1930, he received his degree in chemistry from Friedrich Wilhelm University. After the Nazis came to power, Chain knew that he, being a Jew, would no longer be safe in Germany. He left Germany in 1933 and moved to England.

He began working on phospholipids at Cambridge University under the direction of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins. In 1935, he accepted a job at Oxford University as a lecturer in pathology. During this time he worked on a range of research topics, including snake venoms, tumour metabolism, lysozymes, and biochemistry techniques.

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 previously. Chain and Florey went on to discover penicillin's therapeutic action and its chemical composition. It was Chain who worked out how to isolate and concentrate penicillin. He also theorized the structure of penicillin, which was confirmed by x-ray crystallography done by Dorothy Hodgkin. For this research, Chain, Florey, and Fleming received the Nobel Prize in 1945.

Towards the end of World War II, Chain learned his mother and sister had perished in the war. After World War II, Chain moved to Rome, Italy to work at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Superior Institute of Health). He returned to Britain in 1964 as head of the biochemistry department at Imperial College London.

He was a life long friend of Professor Albert Neuberger FRS, whom he met in Berlin in the 1930s.

In 1948, he married Anne Beloff, sister of Max Beloff and Nora Beloff. In his later life, his Jewish identity became increasingly important to him. 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. [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

After his retirement, he moved to the west of Ireland.

References

* Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
*"Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962", Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964
*Citation
id = PMID:17187625
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17187625
last=Wennergren
first=Göran
last2=Lagercrantz
first2=Hugo
publication-date=2007 Jan
year=2007
title="One sometimes finds what one is not looking for" (Sir Alexander Fleming): the most important medical discovery of the 20th century.
volume=96
issue=1
periodical=Acta Paediatr.
pages=141-4
doi = 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2007.00098.x
*Citation
id = PMID:15175995
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15175995
last=Ligon
first=B Lee
publication-date=2004 Jan
year=2004
title=Penicillin: its discovery and early development.
volume=15
issue=1
periodical=Seminars in pediatric infectious diseases
pages=52-7
*Citation
id = PMID:10994820
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10994820
last=Shampo
first=M A
last2=Kyle
first2=R A
publication-date=2000 Sep
year=2000
title=Ernst Chain--Nobel Prize for work on penicillin.
volume=75
issue=9
periodical=Mayo Clin. Proc.
pages=882
*Citation
id = PMID:8878227
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8878227
last=Radetsky
first=M
publication-date=1996 Sep
year=1996
title=The discovery of penicillin.
volume=15
issue=9
periodical=Pediatr. Infect. Dis. J.
pages=811-8
*Citation
id = PMID:8647352
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8647352
last=Joklik
first=W K
publication-date=1996 Mar
year=1996
title=The story of penicillin: the view from Oxford in the early 1950s.
volume=10
issue=4
periodical=FASEB J.
pages=525-8
*Citation
id = PMID:3304987
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3304987
last=Grossman
first=L I
publication-date=1987 Jun
year=1987
title=The making of an antibiotic.
volume=3
issue=3
periodical=Endodontics & dental traumatology
pages=91-4
*Citation
id = PMID:6358729
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6358729
last=Sheppard
first=J
publication-date=1983 Oct
year=1983
title=Illustrations from the Wellcome Institute Library. The Chain papers.
volume=27
issue=4
periodical=Medical history
pages=434-5
*Citation
id = PMID:399328
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/399328
last=Mansford
first=K R
publication-date=1979 Oct 25
year=1979
title=Sir Ernst Chain, 1906-1979.
volume=281
issue=5733
periodical=Nature
pages=715-7
*Citation
id = PMID:393682
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/393682
last=Abraham
first=E P
publication-date=1979 Oct
year=1979
title=Obituary: Sir Ernst Boris Chain.
volume=32
issue=10
periodical=J. Antibiot.
pages=1080-1
*Citation
id = PMID:89493
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/89493
publication-date=1979 Aug 25
year=1979
title=Ernst Boris Chain.
volume=2
issue=8139
periodical=Lancet
pages=427
*Citation
id = PMID:391241
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/391241
last=Wagner
first=W H
publication-date=1979
year=1979
title= [In memoriam, Dr. Ernst Boris Chain]
volume=29
issue=10
periodical=Arzneimittel-Forschung
pages=1645-6
*Citation
id = PMID:4569743
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4569743
last=Madden
first=J L
publication-date=1973 Mar
year=1973
title="Chance only favours the mind which is prepared".
volume=136
issue=3
periodical=Surgery, gynecology & obstetrics
pages=444-5
*Citation
id = PMID:5188004
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5188004
publication-date=1968 Sep
year=1968
title= [Nobel Prize winner Chain and penicillin]
volume=22
issue=9
periodical=Die Agnes Karll-Schwester, der Krankenpfleger
pages=406
*Citation
id = PMID:4882952
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4882952
last=Sulek
first=K
publication-date=1968 Sep 1
year=1968
title= [Nobel prize in 1945 for Alexander Fleming, Ernest Boris Chain and Howard Walter Florey for the discovery of penicillin and its therapeutic effect in infections]
volume=21
issue=15
periodical=Wiad. Lek.
pages=1388-90
*Citation
id = PMID:5342117
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5342117
last=Kenéz
first=J
publication-date=1966 Nov 6
year=1966
title= [E. B. Chain is 60 years old]
volume=107
issue=45
periodical=Orvosi hetilap
pages=2145-7

External links

* [http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1945/chain-bio.html A biography at Nobel Museum site]