who proposed lac operon
The Discovery of the lac Operon. In 1961, Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod proposed the operon model of gene regulation in bacteria. The model was based on their study of the genes in E. coli that code for enzymes that affect the breakdown of lactose. Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod. Photo courtesy of Archive Photo. Because of the pioneering work of Jacob and Monod, the lac operon is typically used to illustrate gene regulation in bacteria.