Charles Drew was born in 1904 in Washington D.C. and graduated from Amherst College, where he excelled in sports. Unable to afford medical school initially, he became an instructor before attending McGill University and Columbia University, where he researched preserving blood plasma. For this work, he received his doctorate from Columbia in 1940, becoming the first African American to earn a PhD there. During World War II, he helped with the "Blood for Britain" effort and collected over 14,000 pints of blood, changing methods for blood storage that are still used today.