François Jacob - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Its engagement during the Second world war

François Jacob is the only son of Simon Jacob and Therese Franck. After its schooling with the college Carnot with Paris, it is registered with the Medical college of Paris with the intention to become Chirurgie N. Its studies of medicine are stopped before the end of its second year: in June 1940, it leaves the France to join the Free French Forces with London. It is in the capacity as officer of the Department of health of the armies that it takes part in military operations with the Fezzan and in Tripolitaine (Libya), as in Tunisia where it is wounded. It passes then in Second dB. At the time of the countryside of Normandy in August 1944, it is again wounded, this time seriously, and must spend seven months to the military hospital of the Valley-of-Grace.
After the war, it finishes its studies of medicine in Paris where it obtains its doctorate in 1947 with a thesis devoted to the properties of the Tyrothricine, a Antibiotique of local use which had been isolated as of 1939 by Rene Dubos and which was the first marketed antibiotic. The same year, he marries the pianist Lise Bloch who will give him four children: Pierre, who became philosophical, the Jumeau X Laurent and Odile (the future founder of the editions Odile Jacob) and Henri.

Humanistic, it in particular signed, with other prizes winner of the Nobel Prize, a call asking that a delegation of the Committee of the Rights of the Child of UNO returns visit to a child Tibetan under house arrest since 1995 in China, Gendhun Choekyi Nyima, recognized like 11th Panchen LAMA by the 14th Dalaï Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

Its scientific career

Its wounds of war being too serious to enable him to exert the Surgery, he works initially in other fields until in 1950, year when he enters to the Institut Pasteur under the direction of André Lwoff.
In 1956 it is named director of laboratory and in 1960 chief of the cellular service of genetics which had just been installed at the Pasteur Institute. In 1964 it is seen allotting to the Collège de France a cellular pulpit of genetics created for him.

Its principal work

It is in 1951 that it completes its studies of Biologie and in 1954 which it supports with the Sorbonne a thesis of doctorate in biology devoted to the Lysogénie Bactérie (i.e. the state of a bacterium having integrated part of the genetic material of a virus Bactériophage) and with the concept of provirus (a provirus or prophage being the name given to the Génome door frame of the bacteriophage once integrated into that of the bacterium host). In this work it describes in particular the biochemical consequences of the specific changes of the bacterial Génome. Thus he manages to explain the resistance of the bacteria to the prophages by the existence of genetic mechanisms able to slow down the activity of genes of the prophages.
In 1954 begins with Élie Wollman a fertile collaboration several years which will enable them to better include/understand the bonds and the relations between the genetic material of the bacterium and that of sound prophage, as well as the conjugation between bacteria. They work out several new theories together, to explain the exchange of genes between bacteria during a conjugation, to show the circular structure of the Chromosome of the bacteria and the existence of the Plasmide S. Their results are gathered in the work Sexualité and genetics of the bacteria .

In 1958 the remarkable analogies between the Lysogénie and the possibility of inducing in certain bacteria the synthesis of the Lactase (the enzyme allowing to break up the Lactose) allow François Jacob and Jacques Monod, to elucidate the genetic mechanisms responsible for the exchange of Gène S between bacteria. These exchanges confer on the bacteria new properties while allowing them, for example to synthesize Protéine S. These discoveries are at the origin of the technological revolution of the genetic Engineering. In conclusion of this work, Jacob and Monod developed a model describing the interaction of the various types of Gène S and of proteins at the time of the transcription of ARN.

Distinctions and decorations

It is seen decreeing the Croix of the Release, the highest military distinction, for its action during the Second world war.
It is Grand Cross of the Légion of honor.
In 1962 it obtains the Prix Charles Léopold Mayer of the Academy of Science.
In 1965, the Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine, which it divides with André Lwoff and Jacques Monod, comes to reward its work in Génétique.
It is elected with the Academy of Science in 1977
It is elected with the French Academy in 1996, with the armchair of the novelist Jean-Louis Curtis, and is received by Maurice Schumann the November 27th 1997.
In 1995 and 2005, it was delegated Academy of Science to the annual public Meeting of the five academies of the Institut of France.
on October 12th, 2007, it is named large Chancellor about the Release, thus succeeding Pierre Messmer.

Works

1954 the Bacteria lysogenes and the concept of provirus (Masson)
1961 Sexuality and the genetics off bacteria , with Élie Wollman (Academic Near)
1970 the Logic of alive, a history of heredity (Gallimard)
1981 the play of possible, test on the diversity of alive the (Beech)
1987 the interior Statue (Odile Jacob), delivers autobiographical.
1997 the Mouse, the Fly and the Man (Odile Jacob)

References

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