André Lwoff

On December 5, 1925 he married French microbiologist and virologist Marguerite Bourdaleix. The couple worked closely at the ‘‘Pasteur Institute’ and remained close colleagues while working on the parasitical ciliates at the ‘Roscoff Marine Biological Station’ along with French biologist Édouard Chatton.

He was a humanist and strongly opposed capital punishment.

Lwoff was fond of music, painting and sculpture.

He was born on May 8, 1902, in Ainay-le-Château, Allier, in Auvergne, France, to Solomon Lwoff and his wife Marie. His father was a psychiatrist and his mother an artist.

He attended the ‘University of Paris’ from where he completed his graduation with a Science degree and thereafter in 1921, he joined the ‘Pasteur Institute’ of France at 19. He met great French biologist Edouard Chatton at the institute who became his mentor and with time the two scientists remained associated for around seventeen years till the death of the latter in 1947.

Edouard Chatton helped him join the laboratory of Félix Mesnil in the ‘Pasteur Institute’. He first examined the parasitic ciliates and their development cycle and studied morphogenesis. He further investigated issues related to nutrition of protozoan. In 1927 he earned his M.D.

He partnered with his wife (a French microbiologist and virologist), Marguerite Lwoff, née Bourdaleix, all through his career, although Marguerite could not garner much recognition for her contributions as her husband did. She was best known for her investigations on metabolism. Her research work began with a group of protozoans called ciliates and continued with other significant investigations including Apostomatida.

The Lwoff couple were given a laboratory at the ‘Pasteur Institute’ where the duo investigated on Haemophilus metabolism and eventually they discovered the function of cozymase.

In 1932 he earned his Ph.D and upon obtaining a grant from the ‘Rockefeller Foundation’, he relocated for a year to the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research’ in the city of Heidelberg in south-west Germany. He joined the laboratory of German physician and biochemist Otto Meyerhof and researched on haematin, a developmental factor of flagellates, the particularity of protohaematin and related subjects.

He obtained another grant from the ‘Rockefeller Foundation’ and went to the ‘University of Cambridge’ with his wife in 1937 and spent seven months there in the lab of David Keilin.

He was inducted as Head of Department at the ‘Pasteur Institute’ in 1938. He carried on significant research work while serving at the institute.

In 1965 he was jointly awarded the ‘Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine’ along with two other French biologists, François Jacob and Jacques Monod