Charles Weissmann

Charles Weissmann, born in Budapest in 1931, is a molecular biologist who spent most of his career at the University of Zurich.

Weissmann co-founded Biogen in 1978. In 1980 his Zurich laboratory reported cloning human leukocyte (alpha) interferon and producing it in bacteria, Biogen's first major scientific result. The technology was licensed to Schering-Plough and became Intron A, an early source of royalties. Weissmann later became a leading prion researcher, showing that mice lacking the prion protein gene are resistant to scrapie.

Weissmann was born on October 14, 1931 and died on December 11, 2025. A Hungarian-Swiss molecular biologist, he is known for the first cloning and expression of interferon and for work on the molecular genetics of prion diseases. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).