Rene Dubos

French-born Rene J. Dubos helped pave the way for the development of modern antibiotics. He served as a research assistant and instructor at Rutgers from 1924–27. He then joined the faculty of Rockefeller University, where he spent his entire scientific career except for the period between 1942 and 1944, when he was a professor of tropical medicine at Harvard University Medical School. A protégé of Selman Waksman RC’15, he served as president of the Waksman Foundation for Microbiology from 1951–59. Dubos wrote 20 books, including So Human An Animal, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1969. He served as chair of the Board of Trustees of the Rene Dubos Center for Human Environment in the Bronx, dedicated in his honor in 1980. The goal of the center, which was cofounded by William and Ruth Eblen, is “regeneration—creating new environments that are ecologically sound, aesthetically rewarding, and favorable to the continued growth of civilization.” Shortly before his death in 1982, Dubos joined other artists and scientists in a campaign for restoring human rights in Poland.