Until the end of the World War II, Born was a professional colleague of Soviet biologist, Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, where he investigated the genome and genetic structures.

After accepting a teaching position in 1955, Born was returned to Germany and settled in Dresden (later Munich) where he pioneered studies in advancing the field of radiochemistry.

: 262 [2] In 1935, he was awarded his doctorate in radiochemistry on the topics of the lead content of the North German salt deposits and its relationship to radioactive questions.

: Y45 [3][4][5] During his university years, Born was a supporter of the Nazi Party and member of its paramilitary wing, the Storm Troopers, and also held membership of the German Labour Front.

: 262 [2] Born worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research)[6] of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft, in Berlin-Buch.

At the KWIH, Born examined the distribution of Radionuclides in the organs of rodents, and he also worked with fission products from research programs conducted under Nikolaus Riehl, scientific director of the Auergesellschaft, who was a participant in the German nuclear energy project Uranverein.

[5] What happened to Born after the Russians entered Berlin, at the close of World War II, is best understood in the context of his colleague Karl Zimmer at the KWIH, who also had a professional relationship with Nikolaus Riehl at the Auergesellschaft.

At the close of World War II, Russia had special search teams operating in Austria and Germany, especially in Berlin, to identify and "requisition" equipment, materiel, intellectual property, and personnel useful to the Soviet atomic bomb project.

In mid-May 1945, the Russian nuclear physicists Georgy Flerov and Lev Artsimovich, in NKVD colonel's uniforms, compelled Zimmer to take them to the location of Riehl and his staff, who had evacuated their Auergesellschaft facilities and were west of Berlin, hoping to be in an area occupied by the American or British military forces.

Born and Karl Zimmer were being held in Krasnogorsk, in the main PoW camp for Germans with scientific degrees, Riehl arranged though Zavenyagin to have them sent to Ehlektrostal’.

Other notable Germans at the facility were Werner Czulius, Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst Rexer, and Carl Friedrich Weiss.

In 1947, Timofeev-Resovskij was rescued out of a harsh Gulag prison camp, nursed back to health, and sent to Sungul' to complete his sentence, but still make a contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb project.