François Jacob (1920–2013) was a French biologist known for his pioneering research in molecular biology and genetics. Born in Nancy, France, Jacob studied medicine in Paris before pursuing a career in research.

Jacob’s most significant contributions came from his collaboration with Jacques Monod and André Lwoff, with whom he elucidated the operon model of gene regulation in bacteria. Their groundbreaking work, conducted in the 1960s, demonstrated how genes are controlled and expressed in response to environmental signals, laying the foundation for our understanding of gene regulation and cellular processes.

For their discoveries, Jacob, Monod, and Lwoff were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965. Jacob’s subsequent research explored various aspects of molecular biology, including the role of messenger RNA in protein synthesis and the mechanisms of viral infection.

Throughout his career, Jacob’s work had a profound impact on the field of molecular biology, shaping our understanding of genetics and cellular processes.

François Jacob Quotes

1. “The dream of every cell is to become two cells.”
— François Jacob

2. “Nature is a tinkerer, not an inventor.”
— François Jacob

3. “It is hope that gives life meaning. And hope is based on the prospect of being able one day to turn the actual world into a possible one that looks better.”
— François Jacob

4. “Myths and science fulfill a similar function: they both provide human beings with a representation of the world and of the forces that are supposed to govern it. They both fix the limits of what is considered as possible.”
— François Jacob

5. “Evolution is a tinkerer.”
— François Jacob

6. “In today’s vastly expanded scientific enterprise, obsessed with impact factors and competition, we will need much more night science to unveil the many mysteries that remain about the workings of organisms.”
— François Jacob

7. “What man seeks, to the point of anguish, in his gods, in his art, in his science, is meaning. He cannot bear the void. He pours meaning on events like salt on his food.”
— François Jacob

8. “It is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species. Novelties come from previously unseen association of old material. To create is to recombine.”
— François Jacob

9. “For me, this world of questions and the provisional, this chase after an answer that was always put off to the next day, all that was euphoric. I lived in the future.”
— François Jacob

10. “I had turned my anxiety into my profession.”
— François Jacob