V. Kinsky, 1992 Painting, Oil on Canvas
George Emil Palade was born in Iassy the old capital of Moldova, the Eastern province of Romania, into the family of a philosophy professor and a teacher. He was educated at the ‘B.P. Hasdeu’ College of Buzau, in Romania, where in 1930 he earned his bachelor's degree, followed by graduating the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest, Romania. His MD thesis had a rather unusual topic: the reconstitution of the nephron of the marine mammal Delphinus delphi. This included working with fishermen in the Black Sea to collect material, processing it, and then reconstituting the nephron out of serial sections. ‘It was an attempt to understand its structure in terms of the functional adaptation of a mammal to marine life’, Palade recalls. At the conclusion of ten years of medical training, Palade received his Ph.D. in 1940. Following graduation he served on the faculty as an Assistant, and then Associate Professor in the Institute of Anatomy at the University until 1946. By a custom of that time, individuals interested in research or academic medicine spent a year or two abroad pursuing advanced studies; Palade selected the lab of Robert Chambers at the Department of Biology at New York University. After just a few months in Chambers' lab at NYU, Palade, fascinated by the budding electron microscopy approach to cell ultrastructure joined Albert Claude's lab at the Rockefeller Institute, in the fall of 1946. He remained at Rockefeller for 27 years.
During his long tenure in New York, Palade studied the internal organization of cells, making many important discoveries. After a period of exploration of the cell organization by electron microscopy, he decided to move to a correlated approach, based on both electron microscopy and biochemical analysis of isolated sub-cellular components. In fact, cell biology was founded on the principle of connection between the morphology of different sub-cellular structures and their biochemistry as an integrated function. This was the fruit of Palade's work, first on mitochondria, and later with other researchers from numerous disciplines that came to Rockefeller in 1950s to employ the same approach.
By achieving more and more refined cell fractionation procedures, Palade arrived at one of his most important discoveries: that microsomes are actually parts of the endoplasmic reticulum with a high RNA content. These cellular components were subsequently named ribosomes. Also here, in 1953 he started working on vascular endothelium where he was first to describe a specialization of many mammalian cells, namely plasmalemmal vesicles, which today, rightly or not, are thought to be similar to caveolae. Also, in the late 1950s and beginning of 1960s he was the first to propose that the transport of macromolecules across endothelial barrier occur ‘in quanta’via plasmalemmal vesicles.
In 1973 Palade joined the faculty of the Yale University Medical School where he founded a section of cell biology and fostered fruitful interactions between the new discipline of cell biology and more traditional fields such as pathology and clinical medicine. Palade's greatest achievement came in 1974, shortly after he moved to Yale. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Albert Claude and Christian de Duve for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell. Palade described receiving a Nobel Prize as an experience crowned by the high level of recognition attained (and not in the least by the elaborate festivities involved), which afterwards translated in no additional privileges possible, but scores of additional obligations and responsibilities.
At Yale, Palade worked on the vascular endothelium and served as Chairman of the Section of Cell Biology until 1983. From then on until 1990, he served as Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Cell Biology and Special Advisor to the Dean of the School of Medicine.
After 17 years at Yale, in 1990 Palade moved to La Jolla, California where Palade became Dean of Scientific Affairs at the School of Medicine in the University of California in San Diego in which position he continued until 2003 when he became a Professor Emeritus. Here he continued to work on mechanisms of transcytosis across epithelial barriers as well as especially the vascular endothelium. As a measure of his tenacity, he was still interested in solving a riddle he started half a century ago namely the components and function of plasmalemmal vesicles.
The teaching record of George Palade is beyond exemplary, as he trained many luminaries of cell biology. Its essence was perfectly rendered by Nobel Laureate Günter Blobel, one his postdoctoral fellows, who says of his mentor: ‘Clearly, George Palade is one of the preeminent scientists of the 20th century. Many of his discoveries have developed into thriving fields. But even more enviable is his record in teaching. His methods are subtle. A lengthy and boring research seminar suddenly becomes illuminated by his lively and concise remarks and summaries. He readily bundles a plethora of apparently disparate facts into an amazingly simple and coherent concept. Working hypotheses are formulated with great ease. He allows for active participation in his creative processes. It's like responding to a beautiful serve in tennis; it's a dialogue, not a monologue. I cannot imagine a greater mentor. I probably would not have continued in science were it not for my intense 6-year encounter with George Palade.’ At a recent symposium held in his honor in La Jolla, California, George Palade answered holding a list of all his collaborators:‘… to me, it reads like a poem’.
The highest honorary medal of ‘Carol Davila’ University of Medicine and Pharmacy (founded in 1857), Bucharest, a medal coined in 1992, when Professor G.E. Palade became the Honorary President of the University, the same University where he has been Assistant and Associate Professor in 1940s.