Dubos, René Jules

Dubos, René Jules (rənā` zhül dübō`), 1901–82, American bacteriologist, b. France, Ph.D. Rutgers, 1927. He joined the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller Univ.) in 1927 and became professor there in 1957. While researching the properties of soil bacteria he isolated, in crystalline form, the antibiotic gramicidin that destroys Gram-positive germs. This work laid the basis of a new field of chemotherapy. A prolific writer, his books include Reason Awake: Science for Man (1970), Man Adapting (1965, repr. 1980), and Celebrations of Life (1981).

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Dubos, René Jules 

Born Feb. 20, 1901, in St. Brice, France. American microbiologist. Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Dubos studied at the College Chaptal from 1915 to 1919 and at the National Agricultural Institute in Paris from 1919 to 1921. He has lived in the USA since 1924. In 1927 he became a professor of pathology in one of the medical departments at Rockefeller University in New York. At the same time, he was a professor at Harvard University from 1942 to 1944. In 1946 he became editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. His principal work has been in antibiotics, acquired immunity to tuberculosis, bacterial flora of the intestines, and new forms of chemotherapy.

WORKS

Biochemical Determinants of Microbial Diseases. Cambridge (Mass.), 1954.
The Unseen World. New York-London, 1962.
Bacterial and Mycotic Infections of Man, 4th ed. London-Philadelphia, 1965.