Short answers, pulled from the story.
Chaim Weizmann was an Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as the first president of Israel, elected by the Knesset on the 17th of February 1949. He is considered the father of industrial fermentation for developing the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation process, and was instrumental in obtaining the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
Weizmann developed a bacterial fermentation process using Clostridium acetobutylicum to produce acetone, which was critical to manufacturing cordite explosive propellants for the British war effort. He was director of the British Admiralty laboratories from 1916 to 1919, following the Shell Crisis of 1915. Industrial-scale acetone production began in early 1916 across six requisitioned British distilleries.
Weizmann used his scientific prominence during World War I to gain access to senior British Cabinet members, including Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, Lloyd George, and Herbert Samuel. He lobbied persistently through 1914-1917, countering opposition from figures such as Edwin Montagu and Lord Curzon. The Balfour Declaration was issued on the 2nd of November 1917.
Weizmann founded the Daniel Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot in 1934, funded by an endowment from Israel Sieff in memory of his late son. On the 2nd of November 1949, the institute was renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in Weizmann's honor. By that point it had grown to employ 400 researchers and 500 students within two decades of its founding.
Flight Lieutenant Michael Oser Weizmann, born in 1916, served with No. 502 Squadron RAF and was killed in February 1942 when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay. His body was never recovered and he was listed as missing. He is commemorated among British Empire air force casualties without a known grave at the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede in Surrey.
Weizmann was elected president of Israel by the Knesset on the 17th of February 1949, after serving as chairman of the Provisional State Council following the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. He served until his death on the 9th of November 1952 and is buried at Rehovot on the grounds of the Weizmann Institute of Science.