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Salvador Luria

Italian American microbiologist (1912–1991)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ205667 ↗
Source-derived summary

Salvador Edward Luria ( LOOR-ee-ə; born Salvatore Luria, Italian: [salvaˈtoːre ˈluːrja]; August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italian microbiologist, later a naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. Salvador Luria also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses (phages) is genetically inherited.

Biography

Early life

Luria was born Salvatore Luria in Turin, Italy to an influential Italian Sephardi Jewish family. His parents were Davide and Ester (Sacerdote) Luria. He attended the medical school at the University of Turin studying with Giuseppe Levi. There, he met two other future Nobel laureates: Rita Levi-Montalcini and Renato Dulbecco. He obtained his M. D. summa cum laude in 1935. From 1936 to 1937, Luria served his required time in the Italian army as a medical officer. He then took classes in radiology at the University of Rome.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Salvador Luria” as italian American microbiologist (1912–1991). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Salvador, Luria and Italian.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 1991, 1969, 1935—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1912-08-13. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Salvador, Luria and Italian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Salvador Luria”, the useful work is to connect “italian American microbiologist (1912–1991)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q205667. VIAF identifies the subject as 103217685. The Library of Congress control number is n50039316. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1991, 1969 and 1935.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Salvador Luria” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.