François Gros (; 24 April 1925 – 18 February 2022) was a French biologist and one of the pioneers of cellular biochemistry in France. His scientific career concerned genes and their role in regulating cellular functions.

Career

François Gros studied at the Faculty of Science of the Sorbonne. Previously he had enrolled in error (see below: Personal life) at the Faculty of Sciences in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

. After a junior position at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

he was awarded a Rockefeller grant to study in the laboratory of microbiology of the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

and in the Rockefeller Institute. He entered the CNRS in 1957 as Maître de Recherche and later as Directeur de Recherche. In 1968 he became Professor in the Faculty of Science in Paris, where he became Chair of the Microbiology Department. In 1972 he became Professor at the

Institut Pasteur The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. T ...

, head of biochemistry. In parallel he was Professor at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

as Chair of cellular biochemistry. Honorary professor at the

, member of the

Institute of France The ; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the . It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately 1 ...

, and also director of the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

from 1976 to 1982. In this last capacity during 1981 to 1985 he acted as advisor to two Prime Ministers,

Pierre Mauroy Pierre Mauroy (; 5 July 1928 – 7 June 2013) was a French Socialist politician who was Prime Minister of France from 1981 to 1984 under President François Mitterrand. Mauroy also served as Mayor of Lille from 1973 to 2001. At the time of his de ...

and

Laurent Fabius Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. Fabius was 37 years old when he was a ...

. Partially as a consequence of this he became involved in the health scandal of contaminated blood ( :fr:Affaire du sang contaminé) when many haemophilia patients were transfused with blood containing

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

Research

François Gros is best known for his role in the discovery of mRNA and further work on RNA and ribosomes. This was published simultaneously with the report by another group of the same discovery.

Honours

Elected correspondent (1977) then member (1979) of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

, he was permanent secretary from 1991 to 2000.

Personal life

François Gros was born in Paris on 24th April 1925, son of Alexandre Gros and Yvonne Pauline née Haguenauer, from a secular Jewish family. During the Second World War he fled first to Brive and then took refuge in Toulouse, changing names several times. Although he was planning to study medicine, he mistakenly enrolled at the Faculty of Sciences in Toulouse to study botany before moving to Paris and the Sorbonne. He died at the age of 96, also in Paris, on the 18th February 2022.Le biologiste François Gros, codécouvreur de l’ARN messager, est mort
He was married with three children.

References

1925 births 2022 deaths 20th-century French biologists Scientists from Paris Pasteur Institute Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Grand Cross of the Ordre national du Mérite Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour {{France-scientist-stub