Francois Jacob (17 June 1920-19 April 2013) was a French biologist who, together with Jacques Monod, shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research of enzyme levels in cells.
Biography[]
Francois Jacob was born in Nancy, France in 1920, and he learned to read at a young age. He was raised in his mother's Jewish faith, but he later became an atheist, and he served in the medical company of the French 2nd Armored Division during World War II, earning the Cross of Liberation, the Legion d'honneur, and the Croix de guerre. Jacob became a medical doctor in 1947, and he later worked with Jacques Monod in researching enzyme levels in cells. In 1965, they sharred the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their research on the regulation of transcription and the control of enzyme levels in all cells. He died in 2013 at the age of 92.