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11 figures

Benjamin Franklin

1706 – 1790

Electricity, bifocals, and the American public sphere.

United States·Physics · Literature · Engineering

George Washington Carver

1864 – 1943

Crop rotation and peanut science that rescued Southern soil and farmers.

United States·Biology · Chemistry

Roger J. Williams

1893 – 1988

Discovered pantothenic acid and argued for biochemical individuality — the idea beneath functional medicine.

United States·Nutrition · Chemistry · Functional Medicine

Barbara McClintock

1902 – 1992

Discovered jumping genes decades before the field caught up.

United States·BiologyNobel

Rachel Carson

1907 – 1964

Silent Spring launched the environmental movement and got DDT banned.

United States·Biology · Literature

Richard Feynman

1918 – 1988

QED, nanotechnology's founding lecture, and the Challenger diagnosis.

United States·PhysicsNobel

Marie Tharp

1920 – 2006

Mapped the ocean floor and proved continental drift.

United States·Biology · Astronomy

Jeffrey Bland

b. 1946

Coined and codified functional medicine; founded the Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991.

United States·Functional Medicine · Nutrition · Chemistry

Candace Pert

1946 – 2013

Discovered the opiate receptor and argued the body is a single emotional-molecular network.

United States·Neuroscience · Integrative Medicine

David Perlmutter

b. 1954

Neurologist who put diet, glycemia and the microbiome at the centre of brain health.

United States·Functional Medicine · Neuroscience

Jennifer Doudna

b. 1964

CRISPR gene editing, now in approved sickle-cell therapy.

United States·Chemistry · BiologyNobel