Ernst Boris Chain, a Jewish scientist who fled Nazi Germany, was the central biochemical force in the team that transformed penicillin from an unstable laboratory discovery into a drug that transformed medicine and saved millions.
sir Ernest Boris Chain, Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, was born on June 19, 1906 in Berlin. His father, Michael Chain, was a native of Mogilev, Belarus, and the son of a tailor. He came to Germany in the late 19th century, studied chemistry, received a doctorate, and became a successful chemist and industrialist. Near Berlin, he established a chemical plant for the production of salts of various metals.
Chain's mother was Margarita Eisner, the sister of Kurt Eisner, the Social Democratic leader who was Prime Minister of Bavaria after the fall of the German Empire. Eisner was assassinated by a German nationalist in Munich on February 21, 1919, shortly before the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Ernst grew up at the crossroads of several worlds. His father, who came from the Russian Empire's Moshav, achieved success in Germany but remained a devout Jew. His mother was born in Germany to an assimilated Jewish family with left-wing views. His grandfather, Shmuel, a tailor from Mogilev who came to visit the family in Berlin, is etched in his memory as "a tall old man with a long beard, who prayed all the time and studied the Holy Scriptures."
Between chemistry and the piano
The young Cheyne's interests ranged from science to music. He was educated in chemistry and music and was a gifted pianist. He was also multilingual: German, Russian, and Yiddish were spoken in the family home; he was fluent in English and French and later learned Italian to a level that allowed him to lecture in that language in Rome.
His father died when Ernest was 13. The family business collapsed during the inflationary period following World War I, and his mother and sister fell into financial hardship. Chain was forced to give up his dream of becoming a professional musician, but he never gave up the piano for the rest of his life.
He studied at the Louise Gymnasium in Berlin and became interested in chemistry as a youth, partly as a result of his visits to his father's laboratory and factory. It was not until 1928 that he received German citizenship. Until then, he was a stranger in the country he was born in – a society that his uncle Kurt Eisner tried to change, and where anti-Semitism remained a powerful force.
From his father, Chain inherited the Jewish faith, the love of chemistry, the ability to work, and the ambition of a Jewish immigrant who sought to advance in a society that was not always willing to accept him.
In 1930, he completed a doctorate in chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He then worked for about three years in the Department of Pathology at the Charite Hospital, conducting biochemical research on enzymes and biological substances.
To earn a living, he gave private lessons, wrote music reviews, and even performed in concerts. Science and music continued to live side by side in him.
The Escape from Germany
After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Chain decided to emigrate to Britain. As he later wrote, he did so “out of hatred for Hitler’s gang, not to save his life.” Like many others, he assumed that the “Thousand-Year Reich” would not survive more than a few months.
He never forgave himself for not taking his mother and sister with him. Both were deported and murdered in the Holocaust. The hasty departure may also have stemmed from his fear of persecution due to his family closeness to Kurt Eisner.
Cheyne arrived in Britain with only ten pounds sterling. Support from the Jewish community helped him start over. Shortly after arriving, he began working at Cambridge University, in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Frederick Gowland Hopkins.
In 1935 he was recommended toHoward Florey, the young Australian pathologist who headed the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University and was looking for a talented biochemist.
Florey collaborated with him on research into natural antibacterial substances found in animal and human secretions, including saliva, tears, and egg white. This increased Chain's interest in the antibacterial mechanisms of action of biological substances.
During a review of the scientific literature, he came across a study by Alexander Fleming About a germicidal substance secreted by mold that is non-toxic to animals. Fleming noticed the phenomenon in 1928 and published it in 1929. He called the substance "penicillin", but was unable to isolate it in a stable and pure enough form for medical use.
The idea that was lifted from the floor
The discovery of the antibacterial effect of sulfa drugs in the 1930s rekindled the dream of Jewish-German scientist Paul Ehrlich: to create "magic bullets" that would kill bacteria without harming humans.
Chain, as he put it, picked up the idea of penicillin from the floor after it had been neglected for years. Initially drawn to the problem out of chemical curiosity, he convinced Florey to launch a research program. He believed that it would be possible to overcome the instability of the substance and produce a medicinal preparation from it.
Systematic research began in 1938 and expanded with the outbreak of World War IIPenicillin was initially produced in very low concentrations from extracts of the mold culture. Chain, Norman Heatley, Edward Abraham, and other team members developed methods for its production, concentration, and purification.
In March 1940, Chain and Abraham conducted an initial toxicity test in mice. The crucial experiment was conducted in May 1940: eight mice were infected with deadly bacteria, and four of them were given penicillin. The untreated mice died, while the treated ones survived.
Eyewitnesses said that Chain danced with joy, while Flory contented himself with the understated statement: "A very interesting result."
The results of the study were published in the summer of 1940 in the journal The Lancet. In February 1941, the first famous clinical trial began on the patient, policeman Albert Alexander. His condition improved dramatically, but supplies of the drug ran out and he died of the infection. The case demonstrated both the power of penicillin and the urgent need to produce it in large quantities.
War, Love and the Nobel Prize
In 1943, Cheyne met his future wife, Anna Bluff, at Oxford. She was a young chemist and the sister of the British historian Max Bluff, a son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Anna continued her studies in the United States and became an outstanding biochemist. The couple had three children, who received a Jewish education.
Britain was at war with Nazi Germany, and the production of penicillin became a medical and military mission. British and American industry mobilized to develop mass production methods, and the drug began to save the lives of the wounded and sick in increasing numbers.
In 1945, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Alexander Fleming, Ernest Boris Chain, and Howard Florey, "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases."
The three laureates changed the face of medicine and veterinary medicine. Penicillin also found uses in agriculture and industry, and it had a profound impact on life expectancy and the ability of medicine to treat infections.
Fleming was the first to identify the activity of penicillin, but for more than a decade the substance remained a grand idea that had yet to be realized. It was unstable, produced in tiny quantities, and could not be used as an available medicine. It had to be isolated, concentrated, tested for safety, and made available to millions of patients.
The winner of the molecular world
Mass healing of the sick and saving lives is a kind of harmonization of life – Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy." The great idea needed someone to give it order and harmony.
Chain was a gifted pianist, and his scientific work also reflected his desire for harmony. The French-Jewish author André Maurois, in his book on the life of Alexander Fleming, described Chain as an extraordinary, passionate, and purposeful scientist who played a crucial role in transforming a laboratory discovery into a powerful medicine.
Maurois noted that Chain was demanding, meticulous, and prone to outbursts of anger. He clashed with his colleagues, but it was his demandingness that pushed the project forward when others doubted the possibility of producing a useful penicillin preparation.
His tenacity, precision, and biochemical ability helped bring the complex work to a successful conclusion. To turn an idea into a medicine requires a skilled artist, a fighter for a stable substance and a conqueror of the molecular world. In this symphony of life, Chain played his part brilliantly.
A believing Jewish scientist
In 1973, Cheyne retired from his academic position. In his final years, he spent periods of time in Ireland, where he died on August 12, 1979.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, received honorary doctorates, and was decorated with the Louis Pasteur and Paul Ehrlich medals. In 1969 he was knighted, and has since held the title of Sir.
From 1954 he was a member of the board of directors of Weitzman Institution of Science In Israel. Chain was a devout Jew, and he objected to comprehensive materialist interpretations of evolution. In 1965, he articulated some of his views in a speech entitled "Why I Am a Jew," delivered at a world conference of Jewish intellectuals.
He argued that the survival of the Jewish people depended largely on Jewish and religious education, and that faith helped preserve its moral and intellectual identity. Having lost his mother and sister in the Holocaust, he devoted special attention to the question of how Judaism had survived thousands of years of persecution.
Chain explained the survival of the Jewish people in terms of the close connection between Jewish heritage and education. In his view, Jewish traditions offer a vital moral foundation for human behavior. He emphasized the importance of transmitting Jewish values to the next generation through in-depth study, opposed complete assimilation into secular society, and warned that renouncing Jewish roots could lead to the loss of a vital cultural identity.
Questions and Answers
Question: Did Ernest Chain discover penicillin? Answer: Alexander Fleming discovered the antibacterial activity of penicillin in 1928. Chain, Florey, and their colleagues turned the discovery into a substance that could be concentrated, tested, and developed as a drug.
Question: What was Chain's role in the development of penicillin? Answer: He led the biochemical work to isolate the substance, purify it, and test its properties, and was one of the central forces that drove the research program at Oxford.
Question: When was penicillin tested in animals and humans? Answer: Tests in mice were conducted in 1940, and the first known clinical treatment in a patient began in February 1941.
Question: Why was Cheyne knighted? Answer: Britain awarded him a knighthood in 1969 in recognition of his scientific and medical contributions, primarily his role in the development of penicillin.
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