Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>After finishing high school in Pinsk, Russia, Chaim Weizmann studied two semesters in the Technical University of Darmstadt, returned home for a year, and in 1895 registered as a chemistry student at the Charlottenburg Technical University at Berlin. He studied and worked in the research group of A. Bistrzycki on synthetic dyestuffs and received a patent in the field. He graduated after 3 years and followed Bistrzycki to Freiburg, Switzerland, where he received in January 1899 a Ph.D. degree with a grade of <jats:italic>Magna cum laude.</jats:italic> He became a Privatdocent at the University of Geneva, worked in Prof. C. Graebe’s group, published papers and patents and sold patents. In 1904, he moved to the University of Manchester in the UK and collaborated with Prof. William Henry Perkin Jr. in research on synthetic dyestuffs and natural products, and started to work with him on the synthesis of acetone by fermentation. He failed to be nominated to Perkin’s chair when Perkin left in 1913, but became a Reader and head of the biochemistry laboratory. After a conflict with Perkin, he continued alone with the acetone synthesis project, found a bacterium that fermented the starch of corn, potatoes, and chestnuts to acetone and butyl alcohol, which was more efficient than a bacterium found by Perkin and co‐workers. The urgent need for acetone in World War One for military purpose and the high yield of his bacterium in acetone‐producing fermentation, compared with the bacterium of his competitors, made Weizmann’s process the favored one by the British military during the war. Weizmann scaled up acetone production and increased its yield by increasing the sophistication of the process by using a high degree of sterilization. For his contributions he is regarded as the father of industrial biotechnology. His contribution to the war effort opened the door to the British leadership in his Zionistic activity. However, this activity and his scientific activity at later periods are not covered in this article.</jats:p>