René Dubos

René Jules Dubos ( born February 20, 1901 in Saint -Brice- sous- Forêt, † February 20, 1982 in New York ) was a French- American physician ( pathology), microbiologist, environmental activist and author.

Life

Dubos made ​​in 1921 graduated from the National Institute for Agronomic in Paris. In 1924 he went to the USA where he received his doctorate in 1927 at Rutgers University. Then he went to the Rockefeller Institute, where he was professor in 1957 and became professor emeritus in 1971.

Dubos was a pioneer in antibiotic research. In the 1930s he isolated antimicrobial substances from soil bacteria. In 1931 he found an enzyme that proved in animal studies to be effective against a pathogen of pneumonia. 1939 isolated and he analyzed an antibacterial substance that he baptized tyrothricin, the first commercially produced antibiotic but toxic side effects had to be used on a large scale.

In 1960 he received the Robert Koch Medal.

He is one of those to whom the slogan Think globally, act locally (think global, act local ) is attributed ( as advisor to the United Nations Conference for the Human Environment, 1972), which was also a central idea of his books on environmental issues. In his honor, was founded in 1980, the René Dubos Center for Human Environment.

For his book So Human an Animal, he received the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for General Non- Fiction. He wrote popular science books, for example, about tuberculosis, environmental issues and Louis Pasteur.

He was co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Writings

• Bacterial and mycotic infections in man, 1948
• Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science, 1950, 1960, Charles Scribner's Sons, Da Capo Press 1986 reprint of the edition of 1960: ISBN 0306802627
• The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man, and Society, 1952, Little, Brown, and Company, Rutgers University Press, 1987: ISBN 0813512247
• Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress & Biological Change, 1959, Rutgers University Press, 1987: ISBN 0813512603
• Pasteur and Modern Science, 1960, Anchor Books, American Society for Microbiology edition with a new chapter by Thomas D. Brock, 1998: ISBN 1555811442
• The Dreams of Reason: Science and Utopias, 1961 George B. Pegram Lectures, Columbia University Press
• The Unseen World, 1962, The Rockefeller Institute Press
• Reprint Continuity in Living Experience, 1962, Simon and Schuster, Touchstone, 1970: The Torch of Life ISBN 0671204696
• Man Adapting, 1966, Yale University Press, ISBN 0300004370, expanded edition 1980: ISBN 0300025815
• Man, Medicine and Environment; 1968
• So Human an Animal: How We Are Shaped by Surroundings and Events, 1968, Scribner Book Company, Transaction Publishers 1998 edition: ISBN 0765804298
• Reason Awake, 1970, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231031815
• Barbara Ward, United Nations Conference on the Human Environment: Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, 1972, WW Norton & Co, ISBN 0393063917
• A God Within, 1973, Scribner, ISBN 068413506X ( " towards an ecological ethic " )
• Of Human Diversity, 1974, Clark University Press, ISBN 0914206249
• The Professor, the Institute, and DNA: Oswald T. Avery, His Life and Scientific Achievements, 1976, Paul & Company, ISBN 0874700221
• The Wooing of Earth, 1980, Scribner, ISBN 0684165015
• Quest: Reflections on Medicine, Science, and Humanity, 1980, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ISBN 0151757054
• Celebrations of Life, 1981, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0070178933, 1983 ECON: The rebirth of the world - economy, ecology and a new optimism
• Maya Pines Health and Disease, Life Science Library, 1965 ( he was also editor of the series )
• The World of Rene Dubos: A Collection from His Writings, 1990, Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0805013601