François Jacob
French biologist and geneticist, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1965 · France · Academics · Lived 1920 to 2013 · aged 92
François Jacob is read about 97 times a day, in 60 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 83 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He cracked how cells decide which genes to switch on - the elegant control logic underneath all life. A Nobel laureate who explained transcription regulation with Jacques Monod, and a decorated Resistance fighter before he ever touched a pipette.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 2
In their own words 2
, Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer.
The dream of every cell is to become two cells.
Awards
In their orbit
Child: Odile JacobAbout this person
François Jacob was born on 17 June 1920. He fought in the French Resistance during World War II, earning the Cross of Liberation, the Légion d'honneur, and Croix de guerre. After the war he turned to biology. Working with Jacques Monod, he discovered that cells regulate enzyme production by controlling transcription - the moment DNA is read into RNA - a principle that holds across all living things. In 1965 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Monod and André Lwoff for discoveries on genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis. He later wrote for general readers and in 1994 won the first Lewis Thomas Prize. He died on 19 April 2013.
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