Source: National Archives & Historic Records of France
Science • Historical Archive • 🇫🇷 France • 1 views

François Jacob 🇫🇷

François Jacob (Known as "François Jacob")
Geneticist, Free French Hero, Nobel Prize in Medicine (1965), Messenger RNA Co-Discoverer
Born Jun 17, 1920 🇫🇷 Nancy, France
Passed Away Apr 19, 2013 Paris, France
Lifespan 92 years old
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Notice / Correction
"In biology, evolution does not work like an engineer; it acts like a tinkerer, making new machines from salvaged spare parts."

Archival Overview

Hero of the Free French in WWII, Companion of the Liberation, and geneticist who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering messenger RNA and the operon mechanism with Jacques Monod and André Lwoff.

Biographical Record

Fleeing to London in 1940 after the fall of France, Jacob served as a frontline combat medic in General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division, being severely wounded by German shrapnel in Normandy in 1944. Unable to pursue surgery due to his wounds, he turned to biological research at the Pasteur Institute.

In 1960, Jacob and Monod conceived the existence of messenger RNA (mRNA)—the transient molecular copy carrying genetic instructions from DNA to ribosomes for protein synthesis. Elected to the Académie Française in 1996 and Chancellor of the Order of the Liberation, his memoir The Statue Within is a literary classic.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Montparnasse Cemetery (Division 1)
Paris, France
GPS: 48.8417, 2.3278
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