Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was born on October 24, 1632 in Delft where he spent most of his life. He had many, different jobs among which cloth merchant, surveyor, and chamberlain and he ran a draper’s shop. In his spare time he developed the technique of making lenses to an unprecedented level. With these lenses he build approximately 500 microscopes that had a much higher magnification (up to 270 times) then available at that time. With his microscopes he could see a microcosmos thus far unknown. He described bacteria, sperm, red blood cells, insects and many other single and multicellular objects. He laid the foundation of modern microbiology and cell biology. He was elected foreign member of the Royal Society in London.
On August 30, 1723 he died while dictating a letter to the Royal Society leaving behind a vast amount of scientific data only in later years to be appreciated to its full extent.
A replica of a typical microscope used by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is awarded by the Board of Directors of The Netherlands Cancer Institute to honor those people who made an extremely significant contribution to the Institute.