The American biochemist George Wald (1906-1997) discovered the role that vitamin A plays in vision and made many contributions to the knowledge of the biochemistry of vision. He won the Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology in 1967 and was a prominent activist in the movement against the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.

George Wald was born in Manhattan, NY, on November 18, 1906, the son of Ernestine Rosenmann, a Bavarian immigrant, and Isaac Wald, a Polish immigrant tailor. He was raised in Brooklyn, NY, and attended Brooklyn High School. He earned a bachelor of science degree in zoology at New York University.

Wald went to Columbia University to do graduate work, receiving a masters degree in 1928 and his Ph.D. in 1932. At Columbia he worked under Selig Hecht, one of the founders of biophysics and an expert in the physiology of vision. Hecht had great influence on Wald. In...