Piotr Słonimski (November 9, 1922, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

– April 25, 2009, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a Polish-born French geneticist, pioneer of yeast mitochondrial genetics, nephew of the Polish poet

Antoni Słonimski Antoni Słonimski (15 November 1895 – 4 July 1976) was a Polish poet, artist, journalist, playwright and prose writer, president of the Union of Polish Writers in 1956–1959 during the Polish October, known for his devotion to social justic ...

. __NOTOC__

Biography

Słonimski was born in

in 1922 and he finished " underground" studies of medicine during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in occupied Poland. He was a member of the Polish resistance movement and the

Armia Krajowa The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

, and he fought during the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

. According to his own account, he became interested with

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

when he discovered, among ruins of a German police station and while performing an act of sabotage, a German book on the experiments of

George Wells Beadle George Wells Beadle (October 22, 1903 – June 9, 1989) was an American geneticist. In 1958 he shared one-half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Tatum for their discovery of the role of genes in regulating biochemical even ...

and

Boris Ephrussi Boris Ephrussi (; 9 May 1901 – 2 May 1979), Professor of Genetics at the University of Paris, was a Russo- French geneticist. Ephrussi was born on 9 May 1901 into a Jewish family. His father, Samuel Osipovich Ephrussi, was a chemical engineer; ...

. After the war, he finished medical studies at the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

. In 1947, Słonimski emigrated and settled in France, as members of

were prosecuted by the newly established communist government in Poland. Once in Paris, he joined the group of

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...

and started working in the field of genetics. In 1952 he obtained his Ph.D. Between 1971 and 1991, Słonimski was the director of Centre de Génétique Moléculaire of the French

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 ...

Gif-sur-Yvette Gif-sur-Yvette (, "Gif-on- Yvette") is a commune in southwestern Île-de-France, France. It is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse, from the centre of Paris (at Notre-Dame), in the Essonne department on the departmental border with Yvelin ...

. Słonimski never broke the contacts with his home country, Poland. Since 1980, he was heading the Solidarité France-Pologne, organizing aid for Poland. He frequently hosted Polish intelectualists and dissidents, such as

Adam Michnik Adam Michnik (; born 17 October 1946) is a Polish historian, essayist, former Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1989), dissident, Intellectual#Public intellectual, public intellectual, as well as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the P ...

Tadeusz Mazowiecki Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946, hav ...

, Maria and

Leszek Kołakowski Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analysis of Marxism, Marxist thought, as in his three-volume history of Marxist philosophy ''Main Current ...

. When

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

was introduced in Poland in 1981, he organized financial support for scientists repressed by the government. The money was smuggled and distributed in Poland by two Polish couriers: Wacław Gajewski, a professor of genetics, and Władysław Kunicki-Goldfinger, a professor of microbiology. Słonimski gave them the code names "

Eukaryote The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms ...

" and "

Prokaryote A prokaryote (; less commonly spelled procaryote) is a unicellular organism, single-celled organism whose cell (biology), cell lacks a cell nucleus, nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Ancient Gree ...

", as Gajewski was working on

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

, and Kunicki-Goldfinger was a microbiologist.

Scientific achievements

Piotr Słonimski did pioneering work on yeast mitochondrial genetics. He was one of the first to show that genetic information is passed outside of the nucleus in mitochondria, and his subsequent, much cited work led to establishment of the field of mitochondrial genomics. In 1980, he discovered that some parts of the

introns An intron is any Nucleic acid sequence, nucleotide sequence within a gene that is not expressed or operative in the final RNA product. The word ''intron'' is derived from the term ''intragenic region'', i.e., a region inside a gene."The notion of ...

in yeast mitochondria encode an enzyme—which he called a maturase—that aids the splicing and the maturation of mRNA.

Awards

* CNRS Gold medal received in 1985 * Mendel Medal (1989) * Commander's Cross with Star

Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta (, ) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on alien (law), foreigners for outstanding achievements in ...

, one of the highest Polish Orders (2009) * Doctor

honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

of the universities in

Louvain-la-Neuve Louvain-la-Neuve (; French for "New Leuven"; ) is a planned town in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Wallonia, Belgium, situated 30 km southeast of Brussels, in the province of Walloon Brabant. The town was built to house th ...

and

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slonimski, Piotr Polish biologists Polish geneticists 1922 births 2009 deaths Members of the French Academy of Sciences Physicians from Warsaw Polish emigrants to France 20th-century Polish biologists Jagiellonian University alumni University of Paris alumni Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research 20th-century French biologists Home Army members