Education
Rosenberg graduated from Brooklyn College in 1948 and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Physics at New York University (New York University) in 1956.
Rosenberg graduated from Brooklyn College in 1948 and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Physics at New York University (New York University) in 1956.
He joined Michigan State University in 1961 and worked there until 1997. In 1965, Rosenberg and his colleagues proved that certain platinum-containing compounds inhibited cell division and then in 1969 showed that they cured solid tumors. The chemotherapy drug that eventually resulted from this work, cisplatin, obtained United States Food and Drug Administration (Food and Drug Administration) approval in 1978 and went on to become a widely used anticancer drug.
The initial discovery was quite serendipitous.
Rosenberg was looking into the effects of an electric field on the growth of bacteria. He noticed that bacteria ceased to divide when placed in an electric field and eventually pinned down the cause of this phenomenon to the platinum electrode he was using.