As they do every October, this year’s Nobel Prize announcements have once again made headlines. As of 2025, there have been 990 individual Nobel laureates and about 22% of them are Jewish. Of those 990, 26 Nobel winners are affiliated with Washington University. Among those 26, nine are Jewish scientists, making up 37.5% of the university’s laureates. So, who are these nine distinguished members of this exclusive club?

With the assistance of information found WashU’s website, JInfo.org, The Falvey Library, The Jewish Virtual Library and The Nobel Prize website, we have compiled the stories of all nine, each one shaping history from right here in St. Louis.

Joseph Erlanger (1944): Listening to the body’s electric language

Joseph Erlanger was the first of Washington University’s Nobel giants. Born in San Francisco in 1874 to Jewish immigrants from Germany, he became fascinated by how the body’s electrical system controls motion and sensation. At WashU, he and colleague Herbert Gasser built early oscilloscopes to record nerve impulses, an idea considered nearly impossible at the time.

Their 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine proved that different nerve fibers carry different types of signals. The modest Waterman Boulevard home where Erlanger lived became a National Historic Landmark, honoring a man whose curiosity helped define modern neuroscience.

Gerty Cori (1947): A woman ahead of her time

Three years later came Gerty Theresa Cori, born in Prague in 1896 to an upper-middle-class Jewish family. With her husband and research partner, Carl Cori, she emigrated from Europe as antisemitism rose before World War II.

At WashU, the Coris uncovered how the body converts glycogen to glucose, a cycle that explains how we store and use energy. Their discovery earned them the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and made Gerty the first American woman to win a Nobel in science. Despite chronic illness and institutional bias, she kept her lab running with quiet determination.

Arthur Kornberg (1959): Building DNA one enzyme at a time

Arthur Kornberg, the son of Jewish immigrants from Austrian Galicia, brought postwar optimism to WashU in the 1950s. As chair of microbiology, he discovered DNA polymerase, the enzyme that allows DNA to replicate. His 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine marked a turning point for genetic research.

Kornberg’s influence continued through his son Roger, who later won a Nobel himself in 2006. It’s one of science’s few father-son Nobel pairings and both were shaped by the same blend of intellect and heritage.

Daniel Nathans (1978): The student who mapped life

Born in 1928 to Russian Jewish immigrants, Daniel Nathans carried forward Kornberg’s genetic legacy. Mentored at WashU, Nathans developed restriction enzymes, the molecular “scissors” that let scientists edit DNA. His work transformed biology and earned him the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

For Nathans, science was never just technical. Friends said he approached research like a calling, a way to repair the world through understanding, a deeply Jewish sensibility that ran through his career.

Paul Berg (1980): The bridge between worlds

In 1980, Paul Berg, another Brooklyn-born son of Russian Jewish immigrants, took molecular biology even further. After early years teaching at WashU, he created the first recombinant DNA molecules, blending genetic material from different species. His work, honored with the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, opened the door to biotechnology, gene therapy and modern genetic medicine.

Berg’s research helped build bridges between disciplines and continents, fitting for a scientist whose ancestors crossed an ocean to seek opportunity.

Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen (1986): The nerve to persevere

The 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to two WashU researchers whose partnership defined resilience. Rita Levi-Montalcini, born in Turin, Italy, to a Sephardic Jewish family, was banned from academia under Mussolini’s racial laws. Undeterred, she built a secret lab in her bedroom and continued her research on chick embryos.

After World War II, she joined WashU’s zoology department, where she met Stanley Cohen, a Brooklyn-born son of Jewish immigrants. Together, they discovered nerve growth factor, the molecule that guides cell and nerve development. Their research changed neuroscience forever.

Levi-Montalcini later founded the European Brain Research Institute and lived to be 103, working until her final years. Cohen spent his later career mentoring students who would carry forward their shared legacy of curiosity and courage.

Robert Furchgott (1998): The molecule of life and love

In 1998, Robert Furchgott, a Jewish biochemist from South Carolina who once taught pharmacology at WashU, shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering nitric oxide’s role as a signaling molecule in blood vessels. His work revolutionized cardiovascular medicine — and yes, helped pave the way for Viagra.

Furchgott’s journey from St. Louis classrooms to the Nobel stage proved that great science often begins in unassuming places.

Aaron Ciechanover (2004): From Haifa to St. Louis and back again

The most recent chapter belongs to Aaron Ciechanover, born in Haifa in 1947 to Polish Jewish immigrants. After earning his medical degree in Jerusalem, he joined WashU as a visiting professor in hematology and oncology before returning to the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology.

Ciechanover’s groundbreaking research uncovered how cells use “ubiquitin” to recycle proteins, a discovery that earned him the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His time at WashU connected Israel’s scientific community to St. Louis’ Jewish legacy of research and resilience.