Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to André Lwoff, Jacques Monod and François Jacob

From September 28 until December 18, the Institut Pasteur's Paris campus is hosting two exhibitions to mark the 50th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to André Lwoff, Jacques Monod and François Jacob, three pioneers in molecular biology. Alongside the international conference "Nobel 50 years. Lwoff, Monod and Jacob as founders of molecular biology", held on September 28 and 29, the Institut Pasteur wanted to pay a special tribute to these three great scientists by celebrating this anniversary with a powerful series of images for staff and visitors.

 

 

• The open-air exhibition, spread over several sites on the Institut Pasteur campus, creates a "photo diary" of the days leading up to and following the announcement of the Nobel Prize. You will see these three pioneers at work in their labs and with their teams, joy etched on their faces when they hear the news from the Nobel Foundation; their appointment with history as they receive their Nobel Prize; and also their sheer passion and commitment, which went far beyond the confines of science.

 

 

• The second exhibition, housed in the atrium of the François Jacob building, tells the story of the operon model. It shows how the research progressed and offers an insight into the reflections that led these three men, together with their colleagues, to develop a system for gene transcription regulation. The spaghetti experiment, the induction of the lactose system and the PaJaMo experiment were all crucial steps for these three scientists on the way to the establishment of the operon model.

 

 

These exhibitions were developed by the Archives Division of the science media library, with the support of the photo library and the contribution of the museum, in coordination with Henri Buc, Honorary Professor at the Institut Pasteur, and the Department of Communications and Fundraising.

See the images used for the exhibitions and the locations of the display boards in the book produced specially to mark the occasion:

Exhibition opening