Agronomy and soil organisms
After training in agronomy in France, Dubos earned a Rutgers doctorate in 1927 and joined the Rockefeller Institute that year. In Oswald Avery’s research environment, he used selective cultivation to find organisms and enzymes capable of degrading protective pneumococcal polysaccharides.
Antibacterial substances
In the late 1930s Dubos investigated antibacterial products of soil bacteria, collaborating with Rollin Hotchkiss on substances including gramicidin. Toxicity limited systemic use, though some compounds had local applications. The work also demonstrated a systematic route from soil organisms to antibacterial substances.
References: [1]
Environment and health
Except for a Harvard appointment from 1942 to 1944, Dubos spent most of his scientific career at Rockefeller. His later writing explored relationships among surroundings, ways of life and health. So Human an Animal received the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.