25 Famous Biomedical Scientists And Researchers You Need To Know About

Synthetic Production of Penicillin TR1468-by Official photographer-Wikimedia Commons

25 Famous Biomedical Scientists And Researchers You Need To Know About

Are you familiar with the term Biomedical science? Well, if not all you need to know is that it’s an exciting field that is crucial in comprehending and treating human disorders. Did I also mention that this field focuses on how cells, organs, and systems work in the human body? Yes! it does so, anyone who wishes to work in the healthcare industry must have a solid understanding of biomedical science. Biomedical scientists carry out a wide range of scientific tests by employing computers and sophisticated lab apparatus, to assist doctors and other healthcare workers in diagnosing, surveillance, and managing diseases. These scientists have made great discoveries and innovations from the discovery of DNA and life-saving vaccines that have saved millions of lives and may even save more. This list includes a wide range of medical research titans who have made and are now making significant medical advancements from throughout the globe and in every area of their specialty.

Read also; 55 Most Amazing Scientists who are Still Alive Today

1. Francis Crick

Francis Crick 1995-by Unknown author-Wikimedia Commons

One of Britain’s most known scientists is Francis Harry Compton Crick whose work alongside James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins is best remembered for identifying the structure of DNA in 1953. Crick was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neurologist who was born on 8 June 1916 and passed away on 28 July 2004. The 1953 Nature article by Crick and Watson set the foundation for knowledge of DNA structure and functions. Their findings about the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material earned them and Maurice Wilkins the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly.

2. Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a bright scientist whose research on x-ray diffraction gave significant hints about DNA structure and quantitatively supported the Watson-Crick DNA model. Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who lived from 25 July 1920 to 16 April 1958. She has been variously referred to as the “wronged heroine,” the “dark lady of DNA,” the “forgotten heroine,” a “feminist icon,” the “Sylvia Plath of molecular biology,” and others for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA, which was largely unknown to her during her lifetime. She also made significant scientific contributions to the fields of virus structural studies and coal chemistry. Both during her lifetime and after her passing, her peers in those fields acknowledged this.

3. James Watson

James D Watson-by Jan Arkesteijn-Wikimedia Commons

James Watson alongside Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, is a molecular biology pioneer credited with finding the DNA molecule’s double helix structure. Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist who was born on April 6, 1928. He, alongside Crick, and Maurice Wilkins was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and their relevance for information transfer in living material.

4. Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock, an American scientist, and cytogeneticist who received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine lived from June 16, 1902, until September 2, 1992. McClintock began researching chromosomes and how they changed in maize reproduction in the late 1920s. She created the method for displaying maize chromosomes and used microscopic examination to illustrate numerous basic genetic concepts. One of those theories was the idea of chromosome information being exchanged through meiosis-based genetic recombination.

She created the first genetic map of maize by connecting chromosomal areas to physical features. She provided an example of the function of the centromere and telomere, two chromosomal regions critical to the preservation of genetic material. She received numerous fellowships, was named one of the tops in her area, and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1944.

5. Jonas Salk

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One of the most-known legendary figures in science is Dr. Jonas Edward Salk who discovered and created the first effective polio vaccine which has provided relief for people all over the world and helped put an end to the yearly scourge of polio pandemics. When the success of the vaccine was announced, Dr. Salk was lauded as a “miracle worker,”. He said that vaccinations should be required and that doing so is a “moral responsibility.” He had no interest in making money for himself; his only goal had been to create a vaccination that was safe and effective as soon as feasible. With the development of the vaccine, relatively little-known physician-scientist Dr. Jonas Salk became a recognized figure in science.

Read also; Top 10 Facts about the History of the Polio Vaccine

6. Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, and microbiologist is credited with discovering the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, which bears his name. His chemical research produced ground-breaking discoveries about the origins and treatments of diseases that formed the groundwork for public health, hygiene, and much of modern medicine. By creating rabies and anthrax vaccines, his work is credited with saving millions of lives. He has received accolades for being the “father of bacteriology” and the “father of microbiology” and is recognized as one of the pioneers of contemporary bacteriology (together with Robert Koch; the latter epithet is also attributed to Antonie van Leeuwenhoek).

7. Robert Koch

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Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician and microbiologist who lived from 11 December 1843 to 27 May 1910. He is considered one of the primary inventors of modern bacteriology for his discovery of the precise causal agents of lethal infectious diseases like tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. He shares the moniker “father of microbiology” (together with Louis Pasteur) and “father of medical bacteriology” as a result. The anthrax bacterium (Bacillus anthracis) he discovered in 1876 is regarded as the beginning of modern bacteriology. His findings directly supported the germ hypothesis of disease and the rationale for public health.

8. Alexander Fleming

Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician, and microbiologist who lived from 6 August 1881 to 11 March 1955 is most known for developing penicillin, the world’s first widely useful antibiotic chemical. It is said that his discovery of benzylpenicillin, also known as penicillin G, in 1928 from the mold Penicillium rubens was the “single greatest triumph ever obtained over sickness.” Along with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, he shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery. Together with the bacteria he termed Micrococcus Lysodeikticus, which was later renamed Micrococcus luteus, he also found the enzyme lysozyme from his nasal discharge in 1922.

9. Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner-by John Raphael Smith-Wikimedia Commons

Edward Jenner was an English surgeon who would go on to become one of history’s most famous scientists for the invention of the world’s first vaccination of smallpox. He also discovered that those who had cowpox were resistant to smallpox. Expanding on this discovery, Jenner immunized 8-year-old James Phipps with material taken from a cowpox sore on a milkmaid’s hand in May 1796. Compared to conventional immunization, his method offered a safer and more dependable level of protection.

10. Elizabeth Blackburn

One of the greatest women in the history of science is Elizabeth Helen Blackburn. She is an Australian-American Nobel laureate and former leader of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who was born on November 26, 1948. She made crucial contributions to the understanding of the molecular structure of telomeres and the enzyme telomerase, which are necessary for DNA replication and cellular division. Along with Carol W. Greider, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that renews the telomere in 1984. Blackburn is also the first Australian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work, sharing it with Greider and Jack W. Szostak. She was controversially fired from the President’s Council on Bioethics under the Bush administration while also working in the field of medical ethics.

Read also; Top 10 Interesting Facts about Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn

11. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello

Vice President Dick Cheney meets with the 2006 U.S. Nobel Laureates, Thursday, November 30, 2006-by David Bohrer-Wikimedia Commons

Craig Cameron Mello who is an American biologist and professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts and Andrew Zachary Fire, an American scientist who is a professor of pathology and genetics at Stanford University School of Medicine are known for sharing the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi).

12. Carl Woese

Carl Richard Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist renowned for developing the groundbreaking phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a method that has transformed microbiology, and for naming the Archaea. In 1967, he also developed the RNA world theory, though not under that name. Woese was a professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and held the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair.

13. Gregor Mendel

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Gregor Johann Mendel, was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar, and abbot of St. Thomas’ Monastery in Brünn (Brno), Margraviate of Moravia, who lived from 20 July 1822 to 6 January 1884. He received posthumous recognition as the father of the current science of genetics. Despite the fact that farmers had known for thousands of years that crossbreeding could favor certain desirable traits in both animals and plants, Mendel’s pea plant experiments carried out between 1856 and 1863 established many of the laws of heredity, now known as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

14. Jacques Monod

For Jacques Monod, molecular biology was a method to put the pieces of the puzzle together that would explain the mechanisms used by all living things, from simple bacteria to sophisticated animals. He is credited for sharing the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with François Jacob and André Lwoff “for their discoveries involving genetic control of enzyme and virus creation” in 1965. Monod and Jacob achieved fame for their work on the E. coli lac operon, which encodes proteins required for the transport and breakdown of the sugar lactose. They developed a model for how the levels of some proteins in a cell are controlled based on their own research and that of others.

15. Harold Varmus

National Cancer Institute director Harold E. Varmus-by Matthew Septimus-Wikimedia Commons

Varmus is best known for his studies into the genetics of cancer which won him the Nobel Prize in physics. He is currently a senior associate at the New York Genome Center and the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. He shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with J. Michael Bishop for identifying the biological source of retroviral oncogenes. In addition, he served as the 14th Director of the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015, a position to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama. He was previously the head of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999.

16. Paul Berg

DNA contains animals’ genomes and controls all of their essential biological functions. The capacity to modify DNA artificially makes it possible to develop animals with novel traits. Paul Berg was successful in introducing bacterial DNA into the DNA of the tumor virus SV40 in 1972, in combination with his research on the virus. Berg thereby produced the first DNA molecule composed of components from many creatures. Recombinant DNA or hybrid DNA are terms used to describe this sort of molecule. Berg’s technique made it possible to develop microorganisms that manufacture components required in pharmaceuticals among other things. He shared the 1980 Chemistry Nobel Prize with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger for their contributions to the fundamental study of nucleic acids, particularly recombinant DNA.

17. Cynthia Kenyon

Cyntia Kenyon 01-by Bengt Oberger-Wikimedia Commons

Cynthia Jane Kenyon, an American molecular biologist, and biogerontologist born on February 21, 1954, is renowned for her genetic analysis of aging in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. Her groundbreaking discovery completely changed our knowledge of this essential biological process and showed that aging is under genetic control. Her research has since contributed to the identification of a common hormone-signaling mechanism that affects aging in a variety of species, including humans. Kenyon is an emeritus professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and the vice president of aging research at Calico Research Labs.

18. Lynn Margulis

American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis (born on March 5, 1938; died on November 22, 2011) was the leading contemporary proponent of the importance of symbiosis in evolution. Her name is as closely associated with symbiosis as Charles Darwin’s is with evolution, according to historian Jan Sapp. Margulis proposed that the emergence of cells with nuclei, which Ernst Mayr called “probably the most important and dramatic event in the history of life,” was the consequence of symbiotic bacterial mergers, which radically altered and reframed current thinking on the subject. She was also the primary proponent of Robert Whittaker’s five kingdom classification and co-developer of the Gaia hypothesis, which claims that the Earth operates as a single self-regulating system.

Read also; 10 of the Most Famous American Scientists

19. Joshua Lederberg

Joshua Lederberg-ni-by National Institute of Health (US Dept of Health & Human Services)-Wikimedia Commons

Joshua Lederberg was an American molecular biologist who worked on the space program, artificial intelligence, and microbial genetics. The discovery that bacteria can pair and exchange genes (bacterial conjugation) earned him the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at the age of 33. Along with George Beadle and Edward Tatum, he received the honor for their work on genetics. In addition to his contributions to biology, Lederberg conducted a lot of AI research. This included work on the Dendral chemical expert system and the NASA experimental programs looking for life on Mars.

20. Harold E. Varmus

American physicist Harold Eliot Varmus was born on December 18, 1939, and is currently a senior associate at the New York Genome Center and the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. He shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with J. Michael Bishop for identifying viral genes that can cause cancer. Nevertheless, they also discovered that these so-called oncogenes originated from normal cells rather than the virus and were subsequently incorporated into the virus. In addition, he served as the 14th Director of the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015, a position to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama. He was previously the head of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999.

21. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

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German developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is the only German woman to have won a Nobel Prize in a scientific field. She has a doctorate in protein-DNA interactions which she received from the University of Tübingen in 1974. Along with Eric Wieschaus and Edward B. Lewis, she received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1991 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995 for their work on the genetic regulation of embryonic development.

22. Roy Yorke Calne

British surgeon Sir Roy Yorke Calne was a pioneer in organ transplantation. Together with John Wallwork, he performed the world’s first liver, heart, and lung transplants in 1987. He also successfully performed the world’s first combined stomach, intestine, pancreas, liver, and kidney cluster transplant in 1994. He also performed the first liver transplantation procedure in Europe in 1968 and the UK’s first intestinal transplant in 1992.

23. Jennifer Doudna

Professor Jennifer Doudna ForMemRS-by Duncan.Hull-Wikimedia Commons

One of the first women to share a Nobel Prize in the history of science is American biochemist Jennifer Anne Doudna, who is known for her groundbreaking work on CRISPR gene editing as well as other important contributions to genetics and biochemistry. Along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, she was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the invention of a technology for genome editing.” She holds the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair Professorship in the Department of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

24. Stanley Cohen (biochemist)

Stanley Cohen was an American biochemist who identified a second growth factor that encourages the growth of cells in the skin and cornea, after Rita Levi Montalcini’s discovery of a chemical that fosters the development of the nervous system. Cohen who was born on November 17, 1922 – February 5, 2020, shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Rita Levi-Montalcini for the discovery of epidermal growth factor and the isolation of nerve growth factor.

25. Tu Youyou

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Tu Youyou is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malarialologist. She made a significant contribution to twentieth-century tropical medicine by discovering the antimalarial drugs artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, which prevented or treated millions of deaths in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. For her work, Tu won the 2011 Lasker Award for clinical medicine, and she and Satoshi Mura shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Tu is the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize in any field. Moreover, she is the first Chinese recipient of the Lasker Award.

Biomedical Scientists play a significant role in so many different aspects of healthcare. Biomedical scientists research a variety of clinical illnesses, from cancer and hepatitis to meningitis and blood problems, and they provide data essential to patient care. Biomedical researchers at NHS Blood and Transplant guarantee the security of patient organs, tissues, and blood. In order to provide patients with high-quality care, biomedical scientists oversee the testing facilities and perform, create, validate, and implement novel tests. They also conduct research and development services.