Francois Jacob ( 1920 - 2013 ) On 17 of June 1920, in Nancy, the city in the east of French, was born
François Jacob, the only child of Simon and Thérèse Jacob.
His father was a merchant, but an equally important role in the development of young Francois, played his grandfather -  Albert Franck, a four-star general.

From the beginning he was a very inquisitive child, he learned to read at a young age.
He attended for ten years a very prestigious Parisian school - Lycée Carnot.
Many years later he described this school as “a cage”.

He was interested and talented in physics and mathematics, but finally he started medical studies at the Sorbonne (University of Paris).
He had to interrupt the studies because of  World War II.

During the German occupation of France Jacob left France to Great Britain, joined the war effort and worked for the medical company of the “French 2nd Armored Division in 1940”.

 

Many times he was awarded for the valor (the Cross of Liberation, National Order of the Legion of Honour, Cross of War)
Jacob returned to medical school and began to do some research about tyrothricin and learning the methods of bacteriology in the process. He became a medical doctor in 1947 and 4 years later joined the Pasteur Institute.
He was married twice, with Lise Bloch and Geneviève Barrier.

His biggest achievement was a discovery of regulatory genes and proposed the existence of an RNA messenger. He explored bacteria genes and thanks to him we know today that they are arranged in a ring.
How big this discovery was testifies the Nobel Prize in Physiology, which he won in 1965 together with with Jacques Monod and André Lwoff.

François Jacob died on  19 April 2013.