The work of the researcher, who died Friday at the age of 96, paved the way for the use of messenger RNA in the main vaccines used against Covid-19.
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French biologist François Gros, codiscoverer of messenger RNAdied Friday, February 18 at the age of 96, said Sunday, February 20 to AFP Etienne Ghys, mathematician and permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, a position that François Gros held from 1991 to 2000.
François Gros’ contribution to deciphering the gene was crucial. His work paved the way, almost 60 years later, for the use of messenger RNA in the main vaccines used against Covid-19.
Having started his career in the 1950s, the researcher contributed, alongside the most eminent figures in scientific research, to the birth of molecular biology, which revolutionized the life sciences.
Entered the Pasteur Institute after the war, Francois Gros There he later rubbed shoulders with Jacques Monod, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1965. Director General of the Pasteur Institute (1976-1981), then scientific adviser to Matignon, he was indicted in 1994 in the blood scandal contaminated, which ended nine years later in a dismissal.
He joined the Academy of Sciences in 1979, before becoming permanent secretary from 1991 to 2001. At the same time, until 1996 he held the chair of cellular biochemistry at the Collège de France.