- Jean Brachet
Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (
19 March ,1909 – 1998) was a Belgian biochemist who made a key contribution in understanding the role ofRNA .Brachet was born in
Etterbeek and he studied medicine at theUniversité Libre de Bruxelles graduating in 1934. He then worked at theUniversity of Cambridge and atPrinceton University and at several institutes of marine biological research. Brachet was appointed Professor of Animal Morphology and General Biology at theUniversité Libre de Bruxelles and Research Director of the International Laboratory for Genetics and Biophysics inNaples .In 1933 Brachet was able to show that
DNA was found inchromosomes and that RNA was present in thecytoplasm of all cells [Sapp J., Jean Brachet, l'hérédité générale et les origines de l'embryologie moléculaire, History and philosophy of the life sciences (Hist. philos. life sci.), 1997, vol. 19, no 1 (dissem.), pp. 69-87, ISSN 0391-9714] . His work with Torbjörn Caspersson showed that RNA plays an active role in protein synthesis. Brachet also carried out pioneering work in the field ofcell differentiation . Brachet later demonstrated papers that differentiation is preceded by the formation of newribosome s and accompanied by the release from the nucleus of a wave of newmessenger RNA .He published many articles and four books. In 1948 Jean Brachet was awarded the
Francqui Prize for Biological and Medical Sciences.References
External links
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