Claude, Albert (1898–1983)

Belgian-born US cell biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1974 for work in determining the structural and functional organization of the cell. Claude is considered the founder of modern cell biology. He devised the differential centrifugation technique to separate cell components, identified the Rous sarcoma virus from chicken tumours as an RNA virus, discovered the cell organelles known as mitochondria and also the endoplasmic recticulum, and was the first to use electron microscopy in cellular research.

He was born in Longlier, Belgium, to US parents. He performed cellular research in Europe in 1928–29, then joined the Rockefeller Institute, now Rockefeller University, in 1929–72. He concurrently directed the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, in 1948–72, and was a professor at the Université Libre, Brussels, in 1948–69.