Nobel Prize Laureate Scientist. He is remembered for receiving the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine as he and his colleagues Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming invented modern antibiotics. Their discovery of penicillin revolutionized medical science and saved millions of lives. He was the son of a Russian-Jewish physician, who owned a chemical laboratory and factory, and he often worked in his father's laboratory. His father died when Chain was fourteen. After World War I, his mother opened her home as a boarding house to support the family. Loving music, he had to choose between becoming a concert pianist or a scientist. In 1930 he graduated with a degree in chemistry and physiology from Freidrich-Wilhem University in Berlin, Germany; from 1930 to 1933, he did research at the Institute of Pathology at Charite Hospital in Berlin; and with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population, he emigrated as an indigent to England on April 2, 1933. First, he worked at the University of Cambridge under Sir Frederick G. Hopkins, the recipient of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Chain was surprised that England's laboratories were not as well equipped as the ones in Germany. He transferred to the University in Oxford to work with Florey on the Penicillin Project. Reviewing a 10-year-old research paper written by Fleming, they learned that he had discovered the antibacterial effects of a mold called penicillin but had not been able to extract it successfully; eventually they did. In March 1940 he performed the first clinical trials on Penicillin. Using mice diseased with Hemolytic Streptococci, Chain gave Penicillin to half of the mice and cured them; the other half died. On August 24, 1940, the two scientists submitted their findings in an article to the “Lancet,” an English medical journal that is read world-wide. Without knowing the dosage needed or possible negative reactions, Penicillin was tested on the first human being in January of 1941. The development of antibiotics during World War II was critical as death from infections of battle wounds was common. Since the British pharmaceutical companies had been devastated by enemy bombardment during the war or busy with other contracts, there was a delay in production. At this point, the United States was brought into the British-American Penicillin Project and eventually, began to produce gallons of Penicillin in Brooklyn, New York. By D-day June 6, 1944, Allied soldiers carried penicillin with them as they landed on the beaches at Normandy. With Fleming's discovery, they had changed the world with the first mass production of a safe and effective antibiotic. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1949. After the war in 1948 , Chain married Dr. Anne Beloff, a noted biochemist, and left England to served as the director of International Research Center for Chemical Microbiology at Superior Institute of Health in Rome, Italy from 1948 until 1961. The British pharmaceutical company, Beechman Group, came to Italy to have Chain assist with the production of synthetic Penicillin. At that point, he returned to England to join the faculty of the Imperial College University of London, where he was professor of biochemistry from 1961 to 1973, professor emeritus and senior research fellow from 1973 to 1976 and a fellow from 1978 to retirement in 1979. A science building was named in his honor at Imperial College University . Besides researching Penicillin and other antibiotics, he studies snake venom, tumors, insulin and other projects in his professional life-time. He was a fellow in numerous medical organizations world-wide including the Academie de Medecine Academie des Science in France, the Real Academia de Ciencias in Spain, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the National Institute of Sciences in India, and the Finnish Biochemical Society. Besides the Nobel Prize, he was also the recipient in 1946 of the Silver Berzelius Medal of the Swedish Medical Society, the Pasteur Medal of Institut Pastur and the Societe de Chimie Biologique from France, and awarded a prize from the Harmsworth Memorial Fund from England. In 1947, he was made Commander of the Legion d'Honnuer. He received the Paul Ehrlich Centenary Prize in 1954, Gold Medal for Therapeutics of Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London in 1957, and the Marotta Medal of the Societa Chimica Italiana in 1962. On July 8, 1969, Chain received Knight Bachelors from Queen Elizabeth II. He author or co-authored many scientific papers on antibiotics. He still played the piano, even in the busiest times at the laboratory. Over the years, he was active in Jewish affairs being a supporter of the importance of providing Jewish education to Jewish children in England and abroad. All three of his children received part of their education in Israel.After a long search, he later learned his mother had died in a Nazi concentration camp and his sister disappeared during the war. He died from heart failure.