Christian de Duve

Belgian biochemist, cytologist (1917–2013)

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Christian de Duve was a Belgian scientist who studied the structure and function of cells at the microscopic level, making major discoveries about how cells work. His research helped us understand the tiny structures inside cells that carry out life's essential processes, which has been important for advances in medicine and biology.

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Person · Open Library

Works: 20

Top works

Poussière de vie
Life Evolving
Génétique du péché originel
Genetics of Original Sin
Lectures in Astrobiology Vol. 1, Pt. 2

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Active from: 1961-11-16

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Academic profile · OpenAlex

47h-index

Works: 225
Cited by: 14,988

Research areas

ChemistryBiologyBiochemistryPhilosophy

Article

Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve (2 October 1917 – 4 May 2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisomes and lysosomes, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Albert Claude and George E. Palade ("for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell"). In addition to peroxisome and lysosome, he invented scientific names such as autophagy, endocytosis, and exocytosis on a single occasion.

The son of Belgian refugees during the First World War, de Duve was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England. His family returned to Belgium in 1920. He was educated by the Jesuits at Our Lady College, Antwerp, and studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain. Upon earning his MD in 1941, he joined research in chemistry, working on insulin and its role in diabetes mellitus. His thesis earned him the highest university degree agrégation de l'enseignement supérieur (equivalent to PhD) in 1945.