Albert Neuberger - Biography

Albert Neuberger CBE FRS FRCP (b. Hassfurt, northern Bavaria, 15 April 1908, d. 14 August 1996) was Professor of Chemical Pathology, St Mary's Hospital, University of London, 1955–1973, and later Emeritus Professor.

Education in Germany

He studied medicine at the University of Würzburg where he was awarded a summa cum laude medical degree. He also took courses in chemistry there and also attended lectures given by Karl Bonhöffer, the outstanding psychiatrist and neurologist. He also worked for a while in research in Berlin where he began a life long friendship. with Ernst Chain. Chain shared the 1945 Nobel prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for their work on penicillin.

Education and career in England

Neuberger left Germany and came to London in 1933 when Hitler came to power. He received a PhD from the University of London after attending University College London Medical School under Charles Robert Harington FRS in 1936 and continued research there. At the start of the Second World War he moved to the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge where he took on Fred Sanger as his PhD student. They published a paper together on the nitrogen content of potatoes. In 1942 he moved back to London to work at the National Institute for Medical Research. During the war he spent some time in India as a consultant in nutrition to the army. From 1950-1955 he was Head of Biochemistry at the National Institute for Medical Research. He then moved to St Mary's Hospital as Professor.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1951, as was his son, Michael Neuberger, in 1993 - a rare case of both father and son being FRS. He was awarded a CBE in 1964. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

He married Lilian(sic) Dreyfus in 1943 and was the father of James Neuberger; David Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury; Anthony Neuberger, Professor of Finance, University of Warwick; and Michael Neuberger; and the father-in-law of Rabbi Julia Neuberger. He was also the brother of Rabbi Herman Neuberger.

See also

• The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine

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