Monod, Jacques (1910-1976), a French biochemist, shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Francois Jacob and Andre Lwoff. The scientists, all members of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, studied the cells of bacteria. They discovered in these cells a class of genes that controls the activity of other genes. Radiation and some chemicals can cause these controlling genes to function improperly. If this happens, the other genes may get out of control and damage the cells. The discovery aided research on cancer, a disease in which uncontrolled cell division takes place.
Monod was born in Paris. He became head of the Pasteur Institute’s cellular biochemistry department in 1954 and director of the Institute in 1971. He was also a professor at the Faculte des Sciences in Paris from 1959 to 1967, and at the College de France from 1967 to 1972.
