Dubois

René Jules Dubos

(1901–1982) French–American microbiologist

Dubos was born in Saint Brice, France, and graduated in agricultural sciences from the National Agronomy Institute in 1921. After a period with the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome as assistant editor, he emigrated to America in 1924.

Dubos was awarded his PhD in 1927 from Rutgers University for research on soil microorganisms, continuing his work in this field at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Reports that soil microorganisms produce antibacterial substances particularly interested him and in 1939 he isolated a substance from Bacillus brevis that he named tyrothricin. This is effective against many types of bacteria but unfortunately also kills red blood cells and its medical use is therefore limited. However, the discovery stimulated such workers as Selman Waksman and Benjamin Duggar to search for useful antibiotics and led to the discovery of the tetracyclines. He won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his book So Human an Animal.


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René Dubos

French-American microbiologist

René Jules Dubos (February 20, 1901 – February 20, 1982) was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book So Human An Animal.[2] He is credited for having made famous the environmental maxim: "Think globally, act locally." Aside from a period from 1942 to 1944 when he was George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and professor of tropical medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, his scientific career was spent entirely at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, later renamed The Rockefeller University.

Early life and education

Dubos was born in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France, on February 20, 1901, and grew up in Hénonville, another small Île-de-France farming village north of Paris. His parents operated butcher shops in each of these villages.[3] He attended high school and the National Institute of Agronomy in Paris, and he received a Ph.D

Dubos, René Jules (1901 – 1982) French/American Microbiologist, Ecologist, and Writer


Dubos, a French-born microbiologist, spent most of his career as a researcher and teacher at Rockefeller University in New York state. His pioneering work in microbiology, such as isolating the anti-bacterial substance gramicidin from a soil organism and showing the feasibility of obtaining germ-fighting drugs from microbes , led to the development of antibiotics.

Nevertheless, most people know Dubos as a writer. Dubos's books centered on how humans relate to their surroundings, books informed by what he described as "the main intellectual attitude that has governed all aspects of my professional life...to study things, from microbes to man, not per se but in their complex relationships." That pervasive intellectual stance, carried throughout his research and writing, reflected what Saturday Review called "one of the best-formed and best-integrated minds in contemporary civilization."

A related theme was Dubos's conviction that "the total environment" played a role in human disease

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