Brown-Hazen Award Lectures

The Brown-Hazen Lectures were established in 1958 to honor Rachel Brown, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Hazen, Ph.D., two scientists who discovered the first safe and effective antifungal, and to emphasize the importance of research excellence in the basic life sciences.

In the late 1940s, Drs. Brown and Hazen, members of the then Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health, conducted research in pursuit of an effective antibiotic. Tests of soil samples obtained from across the country by Dr. Hazen yielded an organism from a Virginia farm that held promise as an antifungal agent. Dr. Brown was able to extract and purify the active agent from cultures of this organism, Streptomyces noursei. The resulting drug, named Nystatin for New York State, was patented by the two scientists, who donated all income from their invention to scientific research.

Dr. Rachel Brown graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1920 and received a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1933. From 1926 to 1968, she was a biochemist at the Division of Laboratories and Research. Dr. Elizabeth Hazen received a doctorate in microbiology from Columbia University in 1926. From 1931 to 1960, she was a staff member of the Division of Laboratories and Research. They received the prestigious Chemical Pioneer Award in 1975, and in 1994 were inducted posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Past Brown-Hazen Award Lecturers