Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Azriel Weizmann (1874 to 1952) was a Belarusian-British-Israeli statesman, biochemist and Zionist leader who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel, elected in February 1949 and in office until his death. As a biochemist he is considered the father of industrial fermentation: he developed the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone, n-butanol and ethanol through bacterial fermentation, and his acetone production method was of great importance in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants for the British war industry during World War I. He founded the Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot, later renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in his honor, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.