17 Facts About Salvador Luria

1.

Salvador Edward Luria was an Italian microbiologist, later a naturalized US citizen.

2.

Salvador Luria won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbruck and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.

3.

Salvador Luria showed that bacterial resistance to viruses is genetically inherited.

4.

Salvador Luria attended the medical school at the University of Turin studying with Giuseppe Levi.

5.

Salvador Luria graduated from the University of Turin in 1935 and never got a master's degree or a PhD as they were not contemplated by the Italian high educational system.

6.

From 1936 to 1937, Salvador Luria served his required time in the Italian army as a medical officer.

7.

Salvador Luria then took classes in radiology at the University of Rome.

8.

Salvador Luria arrived in New York City on September 12,1940, and soon changed his first and middle names.

9.

Salvador Luria soon met Delbruck and Hershey, and they collaborated on experiments at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and in Delbruck's lab at Vanderbilt University.

10.

In January 1947, Salvador Luria became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

11.

Salvador Luria won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbruck and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.

12.

Salvador Luria was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.

13.

Salvador Luria was named a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1960.

14.

Salvador Luria joined with Linus Pauling in 1957 to protest against nuclear weapon testing.

15.

Salvador Luria was an opponent of the Vietnam War and a supporter of organized labor.

16.

Salvador Luria was a friend of the noted linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, and communicated with the Jewish American writer Elie Wiesel through a letter, in which he criticized Israel's involvement in the Guatemalan genocide and satirically Wiesel's silence on any issue concerning Israel's alleged terrorist activities worldwide.

17.

Salvador Luria died in Lexington, Massachusetts of a heart attack on 6 February, 1991 at the age of 78.