George Emil Palade (; November 19, 1912 – October 7, 2008) was a

Romanian-American Romanian Americans () are Americans who have Romanian ancestry. According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 425,738 Americans indicated Romanian as their first or second ancestry, however other sources provide higher estimates, which a ...

cell biologist.Archived
(

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copy) In 1974 he was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

along with

Albert Claude Albert Claude (; 24 August 1899 – 22 May 1983) was a Belgian- American cell biologist and medical doctor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Christian de Duve and George Emil Palade. His elementary education sta ...

and

Christian de Duve Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve (2 October 1917 – 4 May 2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisomes and lysosomes, for which he sh ...

. The prize was granted for his innovations in

electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing i ...

and

cell fractionation In cell biology, cell fractionation is the process used to separate cell organelle, cellular components while preserving individual functions of each component. This is a method that was originally used to demonstrate the cellular location of vari ...

which together laid the foundations of modern molecular

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

, the most notable discovery being the

ribosome Ribosomes () are molecular machine, macromolecular machines, found within all cell (biology), cells, that perform Translation (biology), biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order s ...

s of the

endoplasmic reticulum The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a part of a transportation system of the eukaryote, eukaryotic cell, and has many other important functions such as protein folding. The word endoplasmic means "within the cytoplasm", and reticulum is Latin for ...

– which he first described in 1955. Palade also received the U.S.

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

in Biological Sciences for "pioneering discoveries of a host of fundamental, highly organized structures in living cells" in 1986, and was previously elected a Member of the U.S.

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1961. In 1968 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (HonFRMS) and in 1984 he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS).

Education and early life

George Emil Palade was born on November 19, 1912, in

Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the Cities in Romania, third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical ...

, Romania. Palade's father was a professor of philosophy at the University of Iași and his mother was a high school teacher. Palade received his M.D. in 1940 from the Carol Davila School of Medicine in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Career and research

Palade was a member of the faculty at

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...

until 1946, when he went to the United States to do

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

. While assisting Robert Chambers in the Biology Laboratory of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, he met Professor

. He later joined Claude at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In 1952, Palade became a

naturalized citizen Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

of the United States. He worked at the Rockefeller Institute (1958–1973), and was a professor at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Medical School (1973–1990), and

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

(1990–2008). At UCSD, Palade was Professor of Medicine in Residence (Emeritus) in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, as well as a Dean for Scientific Affairs (Emeritus), in the School of Medicine at

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...

, California. In 1970, he was awarded the

Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers who have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemist ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, together with Renato Dulbecco (winner of the 1975

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

in Physiology or Medicine) "''for discoveries concerning the functional organization of the cell that were seminal events in the development of modern cell biology''", related to his previous research carried out at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. His Nobel lecture, delivered on December 12, 1974, was entitled: ''"Intracellular Aspects of the Process of Protein Secretion"'', published in 1992 by the Nobel Prize Foundation, He was elected an Honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 1975. He received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...

in 1975. In 1981, Palade became a founding member of the World Cultural Council. In 1985, he became the founding editor of the '' Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology''. In 1988 he was also elected an Honorary Member of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences (ARA). Palade was the first Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University. Presently, the Chair of Cell Biology at Yale is named the "George Palade Professorship". At the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Palade used

to study the internal organization of such cell structures as

mitochondria A mitochondrion () is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is us ...

chloroplast A chloroplast () is a type of membrane-bound organelle, organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant cell, plant and algae, algal cells. Chloroplasts have a high concentration of chlorophyll pigments which captur ...

s, the Golgi apparatus, and others. His most important discovery was made while using an experimental strategy known as a pulse-chase analysis. In the experiment Palade and his colleagues were able to confirm an existing hypothesis that a secretory pathway exists and that the Rough ER and the

Golgi apparatus The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic Cell (biology), cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it protein targeting, packages proteins ...

function together. He focused on Weibel-Palade bodies (a storage organelle unique to the

endothelium The endothelium (: endothelia) is a single layer of squamous endothelial cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels. The endothelium forms an interface between circulating blood or lymph in the lumen and the r ...

, containing von Willebrand factor and various proteins) which he described together with the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

anatomist Ewald R. Weibel. He was a member of the American Association for Anatomy.

Palade's coworkers and approach in the 1960s

The following is a concise excerpt from Palade's Autobiography appearing in the Nobel Award documents One notes also that the

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

was awarded in 2009 to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath "''for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome''", discovered by George Emil Palade.

Personal life

He married Irina Malaxa (born in 1919, the daughter of industrialist Nicolae Malaxa) on June 12, 1941. The couple had two children: Georgia (born in 1943) and Theodore (born in 1949). After his wife died in 1969, Palade married Marilyn Farquhar, a cell biologist at the

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Palade, George Emil 1912 births 2008 deaths Scientists from Iași American Nobel laureates American scientists Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu National College alumni Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy alumni Foreign members of the Royal Society History of genetics Honorary Fellows of the Royal Microscopical Society Founding members of the World Cultural Council Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Members of the Romanian Orthodox Church National Medal of Science laureates Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine Grand Crosses of the Order of the Star of Romania Romanian biologists Romanian emigrants to the United States Romanian inventors Romanian Nobel laureates Yale University faculty Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Yale Sterling Professors Cell biologists Schleiden Medal recipients 20th-century American biologists Academic staff of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Members of the National Academy of Medicine 20th-century Romanian biologists