BIOLOGISTS from South Africa

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South African Biologists of all time. This list of famous South African Biologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Max Theiler (1899 - 1972)

With an HPI of 64.13, Max Theiler is the most famous South African Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 56 different languages on wikipedia.

Max Theiler (30 January 1899 – 11 August 1972) was a South African-American virologist and physician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever in 1937, becoming the first African-born Nobel laureate. Born in Pretoria, Theiler was educated in South Africa through completion of his degree in medical school. He went to London for postgraduate work at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, earning a 1922 diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene. That year, he moved to the United States to do research at the Harvard University School of Tropical Medicine. He lived and worked in that nation the rest of his life. In 1930, he moved to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, becoming director of the Virus Laboratory.

2. Sydney Brenner (1927 - 2019)

With an HPI of 61.98, Sydney Brenner is the 2nd most famous South African Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, United States.

3. Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761 - 1836)

With an HPI of 61.56, Christiaan Hendrik Persoon is the 3rd most famous South African Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1 February 1761 – 16 November 1836) was a Cape Colony mycologist who made additions to Linnaeus' mushroom taxonomy.

4. Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (1907 - 2004)

With an HPI of 52.21, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer is the 4th most famous South African Biologist.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer (24 February 1907 – 17 May 2004) was a South African museum official, who in 1938, brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million years.

5. Louisa Bolus (1877 - 1970)

With an HPI of 47.22, Louisa Bolus is the 5th most famous South African Biologist.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Harriet Margaret Louisa Bolus née Kensit (31 July 1877, Burgersdorp – 5 April 1970, Cape Town) was a South African botanist and taxonomist, and the longtime curator of the Bolus Herbarium, from 1903. Bolus also has the legacy of authoring more land plant species than any other female scientist, in total naming 1,494 species.

6. Austin Stevens (b. 1950)

With an HPI of 40.56, Austin Stevens is the 6th most famous South African Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Austin Stevens (born 19 May 1950) is a South African-born Australian naturalist, herpetologist, wildlife photographer, documentarian, television personality, and author. He is best known as the host of the Animal Planet nature documentary series Austin Stevens: Snakemaster (2004−09).