Scientific Biographies
Science is a human pursuit. Meet the people behind some of the most significant achievements and discoveries in the history of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences.
Jonas Salk and Albert Bruce Sabin
In the 1950s Salk and Sabin developed separate vaccines—one from killed virus and the other from live virus—to combat the dreaded polio disease.


Frédéric Joliot
1900 - 1958

Irène Joliot-Curie
1897 - 1956

Percy Lavon Julian
1899 - 1975

August Kekulé
1829 - 1896

Gustav Kirchhoff
1824 - 1887

Harold W. Kroto
1939 - 2016

Stephanie L. Kwolek
1923 - 2014

Henri-Marie Laborit
1914 - 1995

Ralph Landau
1916 - 2004

Robert S. Langer
b. 1948

Irving Langmuir
1881 - 1957

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
1743 - 1794

Gilbert Newton Lewis
1875 - 1946

Warren K. Lewis
1882 - 1975

Justus von Liebig
1803 - 1873

Carl von Linde
1842 - 1934

Arthur Little
1863 - 1935

Alan MacDiarmid
1927 - 2007

John Macleod
1876 - 1935

Jane Marcet
1769 - 1858

Russell Earl Marker
1902 - 1995

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
b. 1953

Lise Meitner
1878 - 1968

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
1834 - 1907

Maud Leonora Menten
1879 - 1960

Julius Lothar Meyer
1830 - 1895

Leonor Michaelis
1875 - 1949

Mario Molina
1943 - 2020
About Scientific Biographies
Everything you need to know about our scientific biographies, including how to contact us, cite a biography, pitch a scientist, write a biography, or republish a biography.