1955 · Medicine · Discovery
Ribosomes revealed
George Emil Palade and collaborators
The idea
Palade described the tiny cellular particles now called ribosomes and helped establish their role in protein synthesis.
Electron microscopy brought the cell’s protein-making machinery into view. The Nobel committee describes Palade’s observations and the work with other groups that connected these particles to protein synthesis. A discovery about living cells belongs here alongside manufactured inventions.
A life behind the work · 1912–2008
George Emil Palade
Born in Iași, Palade developed an interest in research while studying medicine in Bucharest. After wartime military service, he moved to the United States and joined Albert Claude’s laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute in 1946. Combining electron microscopy with biochemical methods, he and his collaborators revealed cellular structures and traced the movement of secretory proteins. He later worked at Yale and the University of California, San Diego. In 1974 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Claude and Christian de Duve.
Biography & sources ↗