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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

3/ In 1974 he shared the #NobelPrize for Medicine for discoveries concerning cell structure and function.

WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

2/ Claude was also one of the first to use of the electron microscope to study biological cells, which enabled him to discover that ribosomes are the power houses of all cells. Later on Claude helped to show that all eukaryotic cells have a lace-work structure.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

1/ Albert Claude was born in Longlier, Belgium, 24 August 1898. A physician and cell biologist, in 1930 he developed the process of cell fractionation to identify and purify the RNA from the Rous sarcoma virus which causes cancer in chickens.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

3/ Sperry later studied humans who had had their corpus callosum severed as part of their treatment for epilepsy. He was jointly awarded the #NobelPrize for Medicine in 1981 for 'discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres.'

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

2/ Sperry's discovery of the split brain arose out of his experiments in 1950s and 1960s. In the first set of experiments he severed the corpus callosum, the large bundle of neurons that connects the two parts of the brain, in cats and monkeys.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

1/ Roger Sperry was born in Hartford CT, USA, 20 Aug 1913. A neuropsychologist and neurobiologst, Sperry is best known for having shown that the two hemispheres of the brain function independently of one another and have completely different functions, a phenomenon he called the 'split brain'.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

4/ In 1969 Luria was awarded the #NobelPrize for Medicine for helping to discover the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

3/ Luria had landed up working with Delbruck in the US because he was banned from academic research fellowships in Italy under Mussolini's Italian fascist regime because of his Jewish background.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

2/ The same year Luria and Delbruck showed phage-resistant bacteria resulted from spontaneous mutations rather than as a direct response to environmental changes. Their work helped explain how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

1/ Salvador E Luria was born in Torino, Italy, 13 August 1912. Luria was a microbiologist who made his name in 1943 when he demonstrated, with Max Delbruck, that viruses undergo permanent changes in their hereditary material

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

2/ Sanger was also pivotal to the development of the dideoxy chain-termination method for sequencing DNA molecules, known as the Sanger method. This allowed for the sequencing of long stretches of DNA which transformed the speed and accuracy and laid the foundation for the Human Genome Project.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

1/ Frederick Sanger, twice Nobel Prize winner, was born 13 August 1918 in Rendcomb, UK. The first to determine the DNA sequence of insulin, Sanger proved proteins have a defined chemical composition.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

3/ The Benesch's work opened up a new era in research on the physiology of respiratory carriage and new insights into sickle-cell anaemia.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

2/ They demonstrated that 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, an organic phosphorous compound, plays a pivotal role in loosening the bonds between haemoglobin and oxygen which improves the flow of oxygen from blood to the tissues.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

1/ Reinhold Benesch was born in Poland, 13 August 1919. Benesch was a biochemist. He is best known for the discovery he made with his wife, Ruth Benesch in 1967 which showed how haemoglobin transports oxygen during respiration.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

2/ Electrophoresis is a chromatography technique that uses an electric field to separate a mixture of charged molecules. Tiselius also pioneered synthetic blood plasma. He was awarded a #NobelPrize in 1948 on the back of this work.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

1/ Arne W K Tiselius was born in Stockholm, Sweden, 10 Aug 1902. A Swedish biochemist, Tiselius devised electrophoresis, a technique used to separate charged macromolecules like DNA, RNA and proteins according to their size.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

2/ Monoclonal antibodies provided a major tool for unravelling disease pathways, and transformed the diagnosis and the treatment of over 50 major diseases. For more about the history see 'www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.p…'

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

1/ Cesar Milstein and Georges Kohler published their technique for monoclonal antibodies on 7 August 1975. Able to provide limitless quantities of antibodies for the first time, their technique was a major breakthrough.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

2/ Fleming is best known for having found penicillin, a mould subsequently developed as the first antibiotic drug to treat bacterial diseases. He was awarded the #NobelPrize in 1945 for this discovery.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

1/ Alexander Fleming was born 6 August 1881. A biologist and microbiologist, Fleming first made his mark in 1923 when he discovered lysosyme, an enzyme produced in the tears, saliva, mucus and human milk which is an important part of the immune system.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

4/ Hutchinson was also the first to identify an inflammatory disease, then called 'Hutchinson's disease', but now known as sarcoidosis.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

3/ Hutchinson's description provided a useful means for diagnosing the disease before the discovery of Treponema pallidum bacteria and development of the Wassermann test.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

2/ Hutchinson provided the first definitive description of the medical signs for the disease: notched incisor teeth, labyrinthine deafness, and interstitial keratitis.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

1/ Jonathan Hutchinson was born in Selby, Yorkshire, UK, 23 July 1828. A physician and pathologist, Hutchinson is renowned for his life-long study of congenital syphilis.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

3/ The BCG vaccine was first used in newborn infants in Paris in 1921. Calmette also developed a diagnostic test for tuberculosis, known as Calmette's reaction.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

2/ The discovery of the virulence of the bovine tubercle bacilli in 1908, paved the way to the development of the tuberculosis vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG).

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

1/ Albert Calmette was born in Nice, France, 12 July 1863. Calmette was a physician and bacteriologist who is credited with the discovery that the virulence of bovine tubercle bacilli is weakened when cultured on bile-containing medium.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

How do you feel about the use of AI in medical imaging? The Department of Radiology at the University of Cambridge has launched a survey to understand what the public and patients know and think about the idea. Please complete and share the survey 'whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/i…'

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

5/ Guttmann escaped Germany in 1939 and landed up in Britain where he was helped by CARA to get a position at the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

4/ Guttmann managed to save many from being arrested or deported to concentration camps by admitting them as patients using his position as medical director of Breslau Jewish Hospital.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

3/ Born to Jewish parents, Guttmann was forced to leave his university position and banned from practising medicine in Germany when the Nazis came to power.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

2/ Taking place on the first day as the opening of the London Olympics in 1948, Guttman's games came to be known as the Paralympic Games.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

1/ Ludwig Guttmann was born in Tost, Prussia, German Empire (now Toszek, Poland) on 3 July 1899. A neurologist Guttmann organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled war veterans.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

2/ On this day, 30 July 1952, the first successful open heart surgery was performed. The surgery was performed on Henry Opticek, a 41-year-old male suffering from shortness of breath, by Forest D Dodrill at Harper University Hospital at Wayne State University in Michigan.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

1/ OTD, 30 July 1952, the first successful open heart surgery was performed. The surgery was performed on Henry Opticek, a 41-year-old male suffering from shortness of breath, by Forest D Dodrill at Harper University Hospital at Wayne State University in Michigan.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

4/ In addition to his work on ribonuclease, Stein showed how proteins that are comprised of the same amino acids can have very different characteristics and functions.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

3/ Stein carried out the work with his colleague Stanford Moore in 1963. The two scientists were aided by their invention of the first means for automated amino acid analysis.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

2/ Ribonuclease was the first structure and sequence worked out for any enzyme.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

1/ William H Stein was born in New York 25 June 1911. A biochemist, Stein shared the 1972 #NobelPrize for desciphering the composition and function of ribonuclease, an enzyme that catalyses the break down of RNA into smaller components.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

3/ Smithies' method facilitated the creation of thousands of lines of mice carrying desired genetic mutations. Such mice are now widely used to investigate the role of many different genes in human health and disease.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

2/ Later on, in the 1980s Smithies developed a method for targeted gene replacement in mice, now known as gene targeting, for which he was awarded the #NobelPrize for Medicine in 2007.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

1/ Oliver Smithies was born in Halifax, UK, 23 June 1925. A geneticist and physical biochemist, Smithies first made his mark in 1955 through his invention of starch gel electrophoresis, a technique used to study human protein variation.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

3/ In addition Yonath elucidated the modes of action of over 20 different antibiotics that target the ribosome, which has provided insights into the mechanisms of drug resistance and antibiotic sensitivity.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

2/ Yonath started the research in the 1970s using x-ray crystallography. By 2001 she had worked out the complete high-resolution of structures of both ribosomal subunits and discovered a region important to the process of polypeptide polymerisation.

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WhatIsBiotechnology @wibiotechnology.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

1/ Ada E Yonath was born in Jerusalem, Palestine (now Israel), 22 June 1939. Yonath is a biochemist who won the #Nobelrize for Chemistry in 2009 for helping to map the structure of ribosomes, the molecule that helps translate RNA into protein.

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