Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 - May 31, 1976) was a biologist and a Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine in 1965. He was awarded also with several other honours and distinctions, among them the medal of the Legion d'honneur. Monod (along with François Jacob) is famous for his work on the Lac operon. Study of the control of expression of genes in the Lac operon provided the first example of a transcriptional regulation system. He also suggested the existence of mRNA molecules that link the information encoded in DNA and proteins.

The experimental system used by Jacob and Monod was a common bacterium, E. coli, but the basic regulatory concept (described in the Lac operon article) that was discovered by Jacob and Monod is fundamental to cellular regulation for all organisms. The key idea is that E. coli does not bother to waste energy making such enzymes if there is no need to metabolize lactose, such as when other sugars like glucose are available. This concept is called negative gene regulation .

Jacques Monod died in 1976 and was interred in the Cimetière du Grand Jas in Cannes on the French Riviera.

Bibliography

• Chance and Necessity V825, Jacques Monod, September 12, 1972, Vintage, ISBN 0394718259
• Of Microbes and Life, Jacques Monod, Ernest Bornek, June 1971, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231034318

External link

• Biography of Jacques Monod at Nobel e-Museum