Born in Ukraine: Nobel prize Winners Ilya Mechnikov, Selman Waksman, Roald Hoffmann AND Georges Charpak

Abstract

Our country has not yet gained recognition from a Nobel Committee, however, some Nobel Prize winners were born in the territory, which belongs to present-day Ukraine. Among them are the father of innate cellular immunity Ilya Mechnikov; the famous microbiologist and biochemist Selman Waksman, whose studies had led to the discovery of streptomycin; the outstanding chemist, poet and playwright Roald Hoffmann, and the prominent physicist Georges Charpak who invented and developed particle detectors, in particular, the multiwire proportional chamber. This paper aims to outline briefly the main stages of their scientific activity.

Keywords

• immunity
• multiwire chamber
• phagocytosis
• streptomycin
• the electronic structure of molecules
• the Nobel Prize
• the organic reactions