We wish to extend a warm welcome to the exhibition “Polish Candidates for the Nobel Prize – born in the magnificent year 1884”, at the main building of the Library of the University of Gdańsk (Gdańsk-Oliwa, ul. Wita Stwosza 53).
The exhibition presents the academic work and private lives of three great scientists − Ludwik Hirszfeld, Rudolf Weigl and Jakub Parnas. Visitors will not only be able to see the exhibits but also go back in time and have a go at working in an early-20th-century laboratory.
The exhibition has been prepared by Dr hab. Alicja Węgrzyn, Associate Professor of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and will be running until 28 February 2017.
Opening times: Monday − Friday, 08:00 - 20:00
Admission free!
Ludwik Hirszfeld (05.08.1884 − 07.03.1954) – doctor, bacteriologist and immunologist, founder of the Polish school of immunology and a new branch of science – sero-anthropology. His work focused on blood groups. In 1928 the League of Nations introduced unified notation of blood groups across the world: 0, A, B, AB, put forward by L. Hirszfeld and E. von Dungern. Hirszfeld also discovered the cause of the serological conflict between the mother and foetus due to the Rh factor. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1950.
Rudolf Weigl (02.09.1883 − 11.08.1957) − biologist. Acquired worldwide fame following the discovery of the only effective vaccine against typhus. First to use insects, particularly the body louse, as lab animals for cultivating the typhus bacteria. Professor of Biology at the John Casimir University in Lvov. Nominated many times for the Nobel Prize.
Jakub Parnas (16.01.1884 − 29.01.1949) − chemist, pioneer of Polish biochemistry, founder of the Lvov school of biochemistry. His interest concentrated around glucose transformation in animal muscle tissue. He was the first in the world to suggest a glucose metabolism pathway which led to the release of energy. He called it glycolysis and, crucially, this pathway is still recognised by biochemists to this day.
