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Waclaw Szybalski was born in a family from intelligentsia. His father, Stefan, was an engineer and his mother, Michalina, nee Rakowska, was a Doctor of Chemistry. The Szybalski family maintained close frienships with numerous outstanding representatives of the Polish intelligentsia in Lwów (Professor Jan Czekanowski - the father of Polish antropology and Professor Rudolf Stefan Weigl, the outstanding bacteriologist, among others).
In 1939 he has graduated in famous VIIIth Gymnasium in Lwów. When the second World War began, from 23 September 1939, Lwów was occupied by Soviets authorities. Waclaw Szybalski joint the Chemistry Department of Lwów Institute of Technology ( Lwów Polytechnica ), where he was entranced by the lectures of Professor Adolf Joszt , an oustanding expert on the processes of fermentation, who even than had a vision of developing the sciences in the direction of genetic engineering and biotechnologyBiotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. Of the many different definitions available the one formulated by the UN " Convention on Biological Diversity" is the most all-encompassing: :"B, which had a direct influence on Szybalski's further scientific development.
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