Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French scientist born on December 15, 1852, and he died on August 25, 1908. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Marie and Pierre Curie because he discovered radioactivity.
Pierre Curie was born on May 15, 1859, and died on April 19, 1906. He was a French scientist who studied physics and chemistry. He was one of the first people to research crystallography and magnetism.
Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie (Polish: [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska kiˈri]; born Maria Skłodowska on November 7, 1867, and died July 4, 1934) was a Polish and French scientist who studied physics and chemistry. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, for their work on radioactivity, a term she created. She also won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the elements radium and polonium, isolating radium, and studying its properties.
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (French: [laɛnɛk]; born February 17, 1781; died August 13, 1826) was a French doctor and musician. He used his skill in making wooden flutes to create the stethoscope in 1816 while working at Hôpital Necker. He was the first to use the stethoscope to diagnose different chest illnesses.
Edward Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English doctor and scientist who started the idea of vaccines and made the first vaccine to protect against smallpox. The words “vaccine” and “vaccination” come from “Variolae vaccinae,” which means “pustules of the cow.” Jenner used this term to describe cowpox. In 1798, he included it in the title of his book, Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, where he explained how cowpox could help protect people from smallpox.
Albert Bruce Sabin (pronounced SAY-bin; born Abram Saperstejn; August 26, 1906 – March 3, 1993) was a Polish-American scientist. He is best known for creating the oral polio vaccine, which helped almost eliminate the disease. From 1969 to 1972, he was the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Jonas Edward Salk (born October 28, 1914; died June 23, 1995) was an American scientist who studied viruses and worked to create a vaccine for polio. He was born in New York City and studied at the City College of New York and the New York University School of Medicine. In 1947, Salk became a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Selman Abraham Waksman was born on July 22, 1888, and died on August 16, 1973. He was a Russian-born American scientist, biochemist, and microbiologist. His research on how organisms in soil break down helped discover streptomycin and other antibiotics.
Sir Ernst Boris Chain was born on June 19, 1906, and passed away on August 12, 1979. He was a biochemist who was born in Germany but became a British citizen. In 1945, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey.
Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey of Adelaide and Marston, OM FRS FRCP (pronounced /ˈflɔːri/; September 24, 1898 – February 21, 1968) was an Australian scientist who worked as a pharmacologist and pathologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for their discovery of penicillin and its ability to cure infectious diseases. Although Fleming received much of the credit for discovering penicillin, Florey and his team at the University of Oxford were the first to develop it into a practical and effective medicine.