Background
Moses Wolf Goldberg was born in Rūjiena, Latvia in 1905 and moved to Võru, Estonia as a young child.
Moses Wolf Goldberg was born in Rūjiena, Latvia in 1905 and moved to Võru, Estonia as a young child.
Goldberg attended the German Oberrealschule in Tartu and studied science and mathematics at the University of Tartu from 1923 to 1924.
He then enrolled at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich, where he earned a Diploma in Chemical Engineering. In 1931, he submitted a doctoral thesis entitled Versuche zur Synthese Ephedrin-ähnlicher Körper (Assay for Synthesis of an Ephedrine-Like Body) and earned the Habilitation degree in 1935 despite increasing xenophobia at the institution. Due to the increasingly unwelcoming climate for Jews in Europe, in 1942 Goldberg emigrated to the United States along with many other Jewish scientists fleeing the Nazis.
He took a position with Hoffmann-Louisiana Roche at the company"s Nutley, New Jersey facility.
With Leo Sternbach, Goldberg patented a process for synthesizing biotin in 1949. He obtained numerous other patents while working for Hoffmann-Louisiana Roche, identifying and refining antibiotics and other drugs.
Goldberg died at the age of 58 in February, 1964. Moses Wolf Goldberg was the son of Meyer Itzik Goldberg and Kayla Hanna Gibberman.
His father Meyer Itzik Goldberg was deported to Siberia, and died or was killed in the SevUralLag camp in December 1941.
Leo Goldberg was not deported in 1941, and his fate is unknown. Moses Wolf Goldberg married Regina Hauser in Switzerland around 1928, and they emigrated together in January 1942 along with Regina"s mother Ida Hauser. They had no children.