Dubos, René J.

Dubos, René J. (Jules) (1901–82) bacteriologist, author; born in Saint-Brice, France. He came to the U.S.A. in 1924, and spent his career at Rockefeller University (1927–71), except for two years at Harvard (1942–44). He expanded his original studies of soil bacteria to include investigations of bacterial enzymes and toxins, infectious diseases, and the relationship between microbes and other life on earth. In 1939 he isolated tyrothricin, the first commercially-produced antibiotic. A prolific author of both scientific and popular books, his Bacterial and Mycotic Infections of Man (1948) became a much-reprinted text. In 1969 Dubos won the Pulitzer Prize for So Human an Animal (1968).