Cell biologist and Nobel laureate · 1912–2008
George Emil Palade
Palade helped turn the cell from an indistinct microscopic image into a system whose structures could be connected to their functions.
A life behind the work
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.