Born on 19 January 1920 in Zurich, Felder grew up in Oberrieden, a small rural village on the left bank of Lake Zurich. At school he immediately showed a talent for science, which he cultivated by studying chemistry at the University, where he became the assistant to a world-famous professor, Gerold Schwarzenbach, himself a close collaborator of Professor Paul Karrer, who a few years earlier had won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
He was also a student of chemistry at the University of Zurich.
In 1949, just over a year after his marriage to Elide, the Cilag company (where he worked) formed an alliance with Bracco of Milan and Felder moved to Italy where he invented the new generation of contrast media. The development of these drugs is a team effort and Felder works closely with Fulvio Bracco and a team of experts.
