Christian de Duve

Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve (2 October 1917 – 4 May 2013) was a Belgian biochemist. 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  (equivalent to PhD) in 1945.

De Duve was granted the rank of Viscount in 1989 by King Baudouin of Belgium.

Duve won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974. He discovered two cell organelles, lysosomes and peroxisomes. He described them, and was the first to investigate their functions. Duve shared the Nobel prize with Albert Claude and George E. Palade.

He was elected a member of the Academia Europaea in 1989.

De Duve died in Grez-Doiceau, Belgium, on 4 May 2013, when he asked that his life be ended through euthanasia.

Early life and education
De Duve was born of an estate agent Alphonse de Duve and wife Madeleine Pungs in the village of Thames Ditton, near London. His parents fled Belgium at the outbreak of the First World War. After the war in 1920, at age three, he and his family returned to Belgium. He was a precocious boy, always the best student (primus perpetuus as he recalled) in school, except for one year when he was pronounced "out of competition" to give chance to other students.

He was educated by the Jesuits at Onze-Lieve-Vrouwinstituut in Antwerp, before studying at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1934. He wanted to specialize in endocrinology and joined the laboratory of the Belgian physiologist Joseph P. Bouckaert, whose primary interest was one insulin. During his last year at medical school in 1940, the Germans invaded Belgium. He was drafted to the Belgian army, and posted in southern France as medical officer. There, he was almost immediately taken as prisoner of war by Germans. His ability to speak fluent German and Flemish helped him outwit his captors. He escaped back to Belgium in an adventure he later described as "more comical than heroic".

References

 Other websites 


Category:1917 births
Category:2013 deaths
Category:Belgian academics
Category:Belgian biologists
Category:Belgian chemists
Category:Belgian Nobel Prize winners
Category:Biochemists
Category:Deaths by euthanasia
Category:People from Antwerp
Category:Members of Academia Europaea
Category:Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners