Jacob Franois

French biologist, geneticist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine shared with Andre Lwoff and Jacques Monod in 1965. Jacob studied how DNA and RNA transferred genetic information. His studies with Lwoff and Monod on genetic control of enzymes and virus synthesis in embryonic growth is the research on which the Nobel Prize was based. In 1961 Jacob and Monod described how cells control the activities of their genes and a disturbance can initiate uncontrolled replication of the DNA, which develops into cancer. They saw in their studies an explanation for why some cancers caused by viruses are activated after having been dormant in the body for long periods of time. Jacob was married to Lise Bloch with four kids. In 1999 he married a second time, Geneviève Barrier. He died on 19 April 2013. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less