René Dubos

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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 ( pathologist ), microbiologist, environmental activist and author.

Life

Dubos graduated from the Institut national agronomique in Paris in 1921 and initially worked as a scientific journalist. In 1924 he went to the USA as a laboratory assistant, where he received his doctorate in 1927 from Rutgers University . He then went to the Rockefeller Institute , where he became a professor in 1957 and retired 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 was shown to be effective in animal experiments against a pathogen causing pneumonia . In 1939 he isolated and analyzed an antibacterial substance he named tyrothricin , the first commercially produced antibiotic , but with toxic side effects that were too great to be used on a large scale.

In 1941 Dubos was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . In 1948 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research , and in 1960 the Robert Koch Prize . Also in 1960 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society since 1954 and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1979 . In 1961 he gave the George M. Kober Lecture . He was co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine .

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

For his book So Human an Animal , he received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1969 . He wrote popular science books, for example on tuberculosis , environmental issues and Louis Pasteur . According to the medical historian Mark Honigsbaum , Dubos doubted the conquerability of infectious diseases and compared humans to Goethe's sorcerer 's apprentice . Honey Tree quoted Dubos with the words "Modern man thinks he has mastered the forces of nature almost entirely that have shaped its evolution in the past, and that he could therefore control its own biological and cultural destiny." But this could be as a Illusion , because, as Honigsbaum Dubos further quotes: “Like all other living beings, humans are part of an extremely complex ecological system and are connected in many ways with all the components of this system.” Nature is said to be “at an unpredictable point in time and at an unpredictable level Way to strike back ” . Dubos described a completely disease-free society, despite antibiotics, as a “mirage” .

Fonts

  • 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 1960 edition: ISBN 0-306-80262-7 .
  • The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man, and Society , 1952, Little, Brown, and Company, Rutgers University Press 1987: ISBN 0-8135-1224-7 .
  • Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress & Biological Change , 1959, Rutgers University Press 1987: ISBN 0-8135-1260-3 .
  • 1960: Pasteur and Modern Science. Anchor Books, 1960. American Society for Microbiology edition with a new chapter by Thomas D. Brock, 1998: ISBN 1-555811442 .
    • Pasteur and modern science. 154 p., Desch, Munich 1960.
  • The Dreams of Reason: Science and Utopias , 1961 George B. Pegram lectures, Columbia University Press.
  • The Unseen World , 1962, The Rockefeller Institute Press.
  • The Torch of Life: Continuity in Living Experience , 1962, Simon and Schuster, Touchstone 1970 reprint: ISBN 0-671-20469-6 .
  • Man Adapting , 1966, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-00437-0 , expanded reissue 1980: ISBN 0-300-02581-5 .
  • Man, Medicine and Environment. 1968.
  • 1968: So Human an Animal. How We Are Shaped by Surroundings and Events. Scribner Book Company 1968. Transaction Publishers 1998, ISBN 0-765804298 .
    • The unleashed progress. Program for a human world. 271. S., Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1970.
  • 1970: Reason Awake. Columbia University Press, 1970, ISBN 0-231031815 .
    • Slogan reason. Science for man. 202 pp., Müller, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-27500512X .
  • 1972: with Barbara Ward, UN Conference on the Human Environment: Only One Earth. The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. Norton & Co, 1972, ISBN 0-393063917 .
  • 1973: A God Within. ("Towards an ecological ethic.") Scribner, 1973, ISBN 0-68413506X .
  • 1974: Of Human Diversity. Clark University Press, 1974, ISBN 0-914206249 .
  • The Professor, the Institute, and DNA: Oswald T. Avery , His Life and Scientific Achievements , 1976, Paul & Company, ISBN 0-87470-022-1
  • The Wooing of Earth , 1980, Scribner, ISBN 0-684-16501-5 .
  • Quest: Reflections on Medicine, Science, and Humanity , 1980, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ISBN 0-15-175705-4 .
  • 1981: Celebrations of Life. McGraw Hill, New York 1981, ISBN 0-070178933 .
    • The rebirth of the world. Economy, ecology and a new optimism. (318 pages) Econ 1983. Knaur-Taschenbuch 1985, ISBN 3-426037742 .
  • Beast or Angel: Choices That Make Us Human , Scribner 1982, ISBN 0-684176084 .
  • with Maya Pines Health and Disease , LIFE Science Library 1965 (also editor of the series).
  • The World of Rene Dubos: A Collection from His Writings , 1990, Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 0-805013601 .

literature

  • Carol L. Moberg, René Dubos, Friend of the Good Earth: Microbiologist, Medical Scientist, Environmentalist , 2005. ASM Press, ISBN 1-55581-340-2 .
  • Frank Ryan, MD, The Forgotten Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won and Lost , 1992, Little Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-76380-2 (with a chapter on Dubos).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member History: René Jules Dubos. American Philosophical Society, accessed July 23, 2018 .
  2. ^ Members: René Jules Dubos. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 27, 2019 .
  3. ^ René Dubos Center
  4. ↑ a b c d Mark Honigsbaum: Living with the unknown - Every new epidemic has overtaken previous medical knowledge. That will probably also be the case in the future . In: Pietro Supino (ed.): The magazine . No. 7 . Tamedia ( TX Group ), Zurich February 15, 2020, p. 8-13 .
personal data
SURNAME Dubos, René
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dubos, René Jules (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French-American microbiologist and environmental activist
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1982
Place of death New York City