Behring was born in Hansdorf, Kreis Rosenberg, Province of Prussia (now Ławice, Iława County, Poland).

Between 1874 and 1878, Behring studied medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Akademie in Berlin, an academy for military doctors, since his family could not afford the university.

He learned under some of the great ophthalmologists such as Carl Ernst Schweigger and Wilhelm Uhthoff, leading to his interest in the subject and his writing his doctoral dissertation on it.

They had injected diphtheria and tetanus toxins into guinea-pigs, goats and horses; when these animals developed immunity, they derived antitoxins (now known to contain antibodies) from their serum.

This process would be called serum therapy by him at the time as he described it as a way to induce permanent immunity or "to stimulate the body's internal disinfection".

His research colleague Kitasato Shibasaburō with whom together von Behring had laid the foundation for this therapy in 1890, while nominated as well, was not awarded the Nobel Prize.

[9] Emil von Behring was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1902.

Von Behring is believed to have cheated Paul Ehrlich out of recognition and financial reward in relation to collaborative research in diphtheria.

A chemical company preparing to undertake commercial production and marketing of the diphtheria serum offered a contract to both men, but von Behring manoeuvered to claim all the considerable financial rewards for himself.