Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (Belgian cell biologist)

Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (19 March 1909 – 10 August 1988) was educated at the Free University on his native city of Brussels where his father, an embryologist was rector.

After gaining his M in 1934 he joined the faculty as an anatomy instructor and in 1943 was appointed professor of general biology.

His interest focused on embryonic development experimentally on the role of nucleic acids in protein synthesis and the partitioning of morphogenetic determination between nucleus and cytoplasm.

He was an unusual embryologist of the day; from the beginning he was convinced that development and other biological phenomena would eventually be understood in chemical terms.

In 1942 he proposed the important hypothesis that ribonucleoprotein granules could be the agents of protein synthesis. He indicated exactly where in the cell RNA is localized and pointed out its ability to transform genetic material into protein.
Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (Belgian cell biologist)