Christian de Duve was born on October 2nd 1917 in Thames-Ditton, near London, of Belgian-German parents who had taken refuge in England during the war. In 1920, the family returned to Belgium and Christian grew up in Antwerp, receiving his education in both French and Flemish. He entered the Catholic University of Louvain in 1934.
He initially decided to study medicine but in the course of his studies he became interested in the work of a group investigating the effect of insulin on glucose uptake. This cemented his ambition to concentrate on elucidating the mechanism of action of insulin. In the course of research on the action of insulin upon liver tissue in 1949, de Duve observed a delay in the action of enzymes that break down material, suggesting the enzymes were enclosed with a membranous envelope. He calculated the probable size of this organelle, christened it the lysosome and later identified it in electron microscope pictures. It was for this work that he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 along with Albert Claude and George E. Palade.
From 1962, he simultaneously headed research laboratories at the Universities of Louvain, Belgium and Rockefeller, New York City. With the help of a number of colleagues, he also created a new institute, the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, or ICP, located on the new site of the Louvain Medical School in Brussels. The aim of the ICP is to accelerate the translation of basic knowledge in cellular and molecular biology into useful practical applications, and Christian de Duve remains on the board of the institute as Founder-Administrator.
In recent years he has become increasingly interested in the origin and evolution of life, and has written a number of books on the subject. Christian de Duve is married with four children and seven grandchildren, and lives with his family in Belgium.
We suggest the following stories as good places to start within the collection:
- The Catholic University in Louvain (Part 1)
- The Lilly Research Labs - making a re-discovery
- The Rockefeller Institute and Albert Claude
- A passion for bioenergetics
- The growth of the ICP