Chemist's early life at university in the middle of term (7)
I believe the answer is:
pasteur
'chemist's' is the definition.
(Pasteur is an example)
'early life at university in the middle of term' is the wordplay.
'early life' becomes 'past' (someone's past).
'at' says to put letters next to each other.
'university' becomes 'U' (abbreviation for university).
'in the' is an insertion indicator.
'middle of' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle letters of 'term' are 'er'.
'u' put within 'er' is 'eur'.
'past'+'eur'='PASTEUR'
(Other definitions for pasteur that I've seen before include "French chemist, 1822-95" , "Louis --, French chemist and microbiologist" , "French chemist and biologist, d. 1895" , "He invented a method to stop milk causing disease" , "Louis -, nineteenth century French chemist" .)