Howard L. Bachrach has been awarded more than two dozen honors, including the National Medal of Science in 1983, for his pioneering research in the molecular biology of viruses . After earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1942, he chose to specialize in organic chemistry and biochemistry and received his Ph.D. in these fields in 1949. Bachrach spent the war years doing research on the development of chemical explosives and then was sent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to Denmark to learn more about foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). In 1953, Bachrach accepted an appointment as head of biochemical research at the USDA's Plum Island Animal Disease Center, an affiliation he maintained for the next four decades. During the 1970s, he developed a method for producing FMD vaccine by means of recombinant DNA (genetic engineering) techniques.

Bachrach was born on May 21, 1920, in Faribault, Minnesota. His...