From wartime medicine to biology
Born in Nancy, Jacob served as a medical officer with the Free French forces during the Second World War and was wounded in 1944. After completing his medical degree, he turned to experimental science and joined Lwoff’s department at the Pasteur Institute in 1950.
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Experimental bacterial genetics
Jacob investigated lysogenic bacteria and collaborated with Élie Wollman on bacterial conjugation and the transfer of genetic material. Their experiments helped analyse the arrangement and transfer of genes on bacterial chromosomes, extending the use of bacteria as an experimental system for genetics.
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Gene regulation with Monod
In the late 1950s Jacob and Monod worked on enzyme induction, regulatory genes and related mechanisms. Their operon model explained how a group of genes could be controlled together. Jacob took up a chair at the Collège de France in 1964 and shared the 1965 Nobel Prize with Lwoff and Monod.