Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (19 March 1909 – 10 August 1988) was a
Belgian biochemist who made a key contribution in understanding the role of
RNA
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...
.
Life
Brachet was born in
Etterbeek near
Brussels in
Belgium, the son of
Albert Brachet, embryologist.
He was educated at L'Ecole Alsacienne in
Paris then studied medicine at the
Université Libre de Bruxelles graduating in 1934. He then worked at the
University of Cambridge and at
Princeton University and at several institutes of marine biological research. Brachet was appointed Professor of Animal Morphology and General Biology at the
Université Libre de Bruxelles and Research Director of the International Laboratory for Genetics and Biophysics in
Naples.
In 1933 Brachet was able to show that
DNA was found in
chromosomes and that RNA was present in the
cytoplasm of all cells.
[Sapp J., ''Jean Brachet, L'Hérédité Générale and the Origins of Molecular Embryology'', History and philosophy of the life sciences (Hist. philos. life sci.), 1997, vol. 19, no 1 (dissem.), pp. 69–87, ISSN 0391-9714] His work with
Torbjörn Caspersson
Torbjörn Oskar Caspersson (15 October 1910 – 7 December 1997) was a Swedish cytologist and geneticist. He was born in Motala and attended the University of Stockholm, where he studied medicine and biophysics.
Contributions
Caspersson made sev ...
showed that RNA plays an active role in protein synthesis. Brachet also carried out pioneering work in the field of
cell differentiation
Cellular differentiation is the process in which a stem cell alters from one type to a differentiated one. Usually, the cell changes to a more specialized type. Differentiation happens multiple times during the development of a multicellula ...
. Brachet demonstrated that differentiation is preceded by the formation of new
ribosome
Ribosomes ( ) are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (mRNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to ...
s and accompanied by the release from the nucleus of a wave of new
messenger RNA
In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein.
mRNA is created during the p ...
.
In 1934 he married Francoise de Baray.
In 1948 Jean Brachet was awarded the
Francqui Prize for Biological and Medical Sciences.
Publications
*''Embryologie Chimique'' (1944)
*''Biological Cytology'' (1957)
*''Introduction to Molecular Embryology'' (1957)
*''Molecular Cytology'' (2 vols.) (1985)
References
External links
Photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brachet, Jean
1909 births
1988 deaths
Belgian biochemists
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Free University of Brussels (1834–1969) alumni
Academic staff of the Free University of Brussels (1834–1969)
Princeton University fellows
Schleiden Medal recipients