About the Indiana Branch

IBASM History

• IBASM was organized in 1935

• Indiana may be the only place where a microbiology Ph.D. student (J.D. Watson) and their mentor (S.E. Luria) were both awarded separate Nobel Prizes for different activities

• Indiana has a strong history in industrial microbiology, including Eli Lilly & Company, which was the leading producer of the killed Salk polio virus vaccine  

Notable Indiana Microbiologists:  

• • Salvador E. Luria (Nobel Prize Awardee)

  • James D. Watson (Nobel Prize Awardee)

  • Thomas D. Brock (Nobel Prize Awardee with Kary Mullis, extremophile microbiology) 

  • Norm R. Pace (noted environmental microbiologist, pushed use of 16S rRNA as taxonomic marker gene) 

  • Louis Y. Mazzini (noted for developing diagnostic methods for syphilis)