Claude, Albert

Claude, Albert (1898–1983) cell biologist; born in Longlier, Belgium (to American citizens). He performed cellular research in Europe (1928–29), then joined the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller University) (1929–72). A citizen of both Belgium and the U.S.A., he concurrently directed the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels (1948–72), and was a professor at the Université Libre, Brussels (1948–69). Claude is considered the founder of modern cell biology, and shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in physiology for his many pioneering contributions. He devised the differential centrifugation technique to separate cell components, identified the Rous sarcoma virus from chicken tumors as an RNA virus, discovered the cell organelles known as mitochondria and also the endoplasmic recticulum, and was the first to use electron microscopy in cellular research.