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Era
6 figures
Rita Levi-Montalcini
1909 – 2012Discovered nerve growth factor in a bedroom lab under fascist persecution.
Italy·Medicine · BiologyNobel
Alan Turing
1912 – 1954Defined what a computer is, then was destroyed by the country he saved.
United Kingdom·Mathematics · Computing · BiologyFull profile
Alan Hodgkin & Andrew Huxley
1914 – 1998Explained the nerve impulse in mathematical terms.
United Kingdom·Medicine · BiologyNobel
Francis Crick
1916 – 2004Co-described the double helix and the central dogma of molecular biology.
United Kingdom·BiologyNobel
Rosalind Franklin
1920 – 1958Photographed the shape of the molecule that makes us.
United Kingdom·Chemistry · BiologyFull profile
Katalin Karikó
b. 1955Demoted, defunded, and right: her mRNA work produced the COVID vaccines.
Hungary·Medicine · Biology · ChemistryNobelFull profile