Daniel Bovet (Neuchâtel 1907- Roma 1992)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1957

 "for his discoveries relating to synthetic compounds that inhibit the action of certain body substances, and especially their action on the vascular system and the skeletal muscles"

He graduated in Sciences at the University of Geneve in 1927 and is awarded the degree of D.Sc. in Natural Sciences in 1929. In the same year entered the laboratories of therapeutic chemistry at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he organized the pharmacological laboratory. He worked at the Pasteur during twenty years: the daily contact with professor Ernest Fourneau determined the course of Bovet's future researches.
In 1947 he became head of the laboratory of therapeutics chemistry at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome.
In 1948 he applied for italian nationality.
In 1957 he is awarded the Nobel Prize in Phisyiology or Medicine.
In 1961 became professor of Pharmacology at the University of Sassari.
From 1969 to 1976 directed the Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, National Research Council in Rome.
In 1971 became professor of Psychobiology at the University "La Sapienza" in Rome.
His researches in the field of pharmacology were oriented, by a theoric point of view, into the relations between the substances chemical structure and the biological activity and, by a therapeutic point of view, into the discovery of new therapeutical agents open to a clinical application.
These researches were greately spread over the field of the contagious diseases, of the allergies, of the treatment in Parkinson's disease and of the anaesthesiology.
For Daniel Bovet the psychobiology was "the study of the biological structures on which the animal and human behaviour is based". Therefore, as director of the Institute of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, he coordinated a series of researches in the field of the psychopharmacology, of learning and memory and of behaviour genetics.