bacteriological research, and by the time the building was completed in
1927, an impressive roster of resourceful minds was being assembled.
Two industrious, ingenious, fatherless, and indomitable researchers
arrived at Oxford in the mid-1930s, one from Australia and the other from
Germany. Together, they would tame Penicillium, perfect the production of
penicillin, and conspire with researchers around the globe to make the
breakthrough medicine available just when the world was bent on collapse.
Howard Florey initially voyaged to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar having
just graduated from medical school in Adelaide. His father had died a few
years earlier, and the ambitious young Australian made the first of many
career moves when he began a three-year study program in Pathology.
Florey was awarded numerous scholarships during his academic
matriculation; in addition to the Rhodes scholarship he was awarded the
Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, which led to intermittent research trips
to New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia during his graduate work. Brief
stints in Copenhagen, Vienna, and Madrid, combined with an eventual
doctorate from Cambridge in 1927, provided him with an unmatched
educational background. In 1935, he was named the second director of the
Dunn School of Pathology, turning his attention to bacterial gut
impermeability and investigating whether or not lysozymes were involved
in the protection of the gastrointestinal tract against bacteria. Florey was
honing in on an area of expertise, having demonstrated prodigious drive,
intelligence, and leadership skills; all he needed was a comrade who had
similar soaring ambition and talents.
Ernst Chain was born in Berlin in 1906 to Russian-Jewish immigrant
parents. Like Florey, Chain’s father died while he was still in school (in
Chain’s case, when he was thirteen). Similar to Florey’s athletic
achievements (he excelled in tennis, cricket, and football), Chain was a
piano virtuoso who gave concerts on several continents. Chain graduated
from Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University of Berlin)
and the Institute of Pathology at Berlin’s Charité Hospital in 1930. In
photos, Chain bears a striking resemblance to Albert Einstein, and the
young pathologist, looking in every way like a true genius (he was), began
work in the chemical pathology lab at University College Hospital in April
- A few years later Chain landed a research position in Cambridge,
and after a couple years there, was offered the job of biochemist at the
Dunn School, working under Howard Florey.