Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Emil von Behring, bacteriologist and serologist, received his medical training at the 'Pépinière', Berlin's military medical institute. He was awarded his doctorate at Berliner Universität in 1878. After various positions as a military physician, he joined Robert Koch's Institute for Infectious Diseases as an assistant in 1889. He soon achieved successes in the fight against such diseases as diphtheria and tetanus.

For a long time he was called the 'saviour of the children' because of his research and scientific achievements in the field of diphtheria, which killed almost every second child at that time. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Prize for Medicine for the development of the diphtheria serum.