The 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, won by Herta Huller, a German writer who was born and spent a part of her life in Romania, reopened the debate whether a winner of this prestigious prize should also be claimed by his or her native country, not just by the adoptive one.

In the case of Emil Palade (1912 – 2008), although he lived and worked in the USA, his Romanian origins are no longer neglected, as he himself admitted in his acceptance speech. He was born in Iasi in a family that valued education above all else: his father was a Philosophy professor and his mother was a teacher. He started his studies in his native city and graduated through a baccalaureate at the Al. Hasdeu highschool in Buzau.

Although his father would have wanted him to study Philosophy, he was more inclined towards tangible and material issues, so he decided to enter the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest in 1930 and he got his M.D in 1940, with a rather unusual topic – the nephron of the Cetaceean Delphinus Delphi. However, human beings became his main object of study, as he served in the Romanian medical corps, during the Second World War. In 1946 he married Irina Malaxa, daughter of a wealthy businessman, Nicolae Malaxa, and, in 1946, he decided to move to the USA to continue his research.

For a few months, he worked in the Biology Laboratory at New York University and, while there, he attended a seminar about electron microscopy, held by Albert Claude (1899 – 1983), who invited him to come to the Rockfeller Institute for Medical Research. Palade activated in the Pathology laboratory and initially worked on cell fractionation procedures. The scientific enviroment was extremely favourable – he had capable collaborators, the research institution didn’t lack funds, the field he was activating in was newly found, the competition between the scientist was fierce (in a positive way, of course) – so he had his contribution in several important results: the defining of the mithocondria’s structure and its role in energetic production, the description of the small particulate component of the cytoplasm (later called ribosomes), the investigation of the local differentiations of the endoplasmatic reticulum and the analysis of the chemical synapses.

Since his highschool he had been very interested in history, especially in Roman history, and, as a result, the Latin language proved to be very useful in providing him with names for his newly found corpuscles.

In 1961 he was awarded membership of the United States National Academy of Sciences and he won a couple of prestigious prizes, during the ‘60s – the Lasker Award (1966), the Gairdner Special Award (1967) and the Hurwitz Prize – shared with Albert Claude and Keith Porter (1970).

In 1974, George Emil Palade, Albert Claude and Christian de Duve were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell”. Palade’s Nobel Lecture, having as topic “Intracellular Aspects of the Process of Protein Secretion” was published by the Nobel Prize Foundation in 1992.

Besides working at the Rockfeller Institute for Medical Research, he also activated at the Yale University Medical School (where he was the first chairman of the Deparment of Cell Biology) and at the University of California, San Diego.

The day he was born, the 19th of November was declared the Romanian Researchers’ Day and it has been celebrated since 1944 by Romanian scientists, who present their latest discoveries in the fields they activate in.

A less known fact is that there is another Romanian scientist was supposed to be awarded the Nobel Prize, but who was prevented in receiving the international recognition because of the restrictions of the Communist regime. Ioan Moraru (1927 – 1989) was an important Romanian physician, specialised in Pathophysiology, Pathology and Forensics and vicepresident of the World Health Organization’s Executive Committee. He was also one of the members and founders of the organization named International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which, ever since its foundation in 1980 has used research, education and advocacy to help prevent nuclear war and encourage the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

Spread the word about Romania! Share this article and let others know about the experiences Romania has to offer.

Subscribe to Newsletter: