Ernst Chain (19 June 1906 – 12 August 1979) was a German-British biochemist and the co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin.
Biography[]
Ernst Chain was born in Berlin, German Empire in 1906, and he received his degree in chemistry from Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1930. On 2 April 1933, he emigrated to the United Kingdom following the Nazi seizure of power, and, in 1935, he became a lecturer in pathology at Oxford University. During World War II, he researched penicillin, which became the Allied "miracle drug" during the Southeast Asia campaign. He was the co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin, and he died in Castlebar, Ireland in 1979.