Jacob, along with Jacque Monod, cemented the notion of gene regulation in the history of genetics with their discovery of the lac operon in E. coli., earning them the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. The world has lost a great explorer and creative thinker...
Jacob did not have a particular plan for his research when he ascended into the attic, but he ended up studying two examples of one major bio- logical puzzle: why genes sometimes make proteins and sometimes don’t. For several years, Jacob investigated prophages, the viruses that disappear into their E. coli host, only to reappear generations later.
No one at the time had a good explanation for how genes in E. coli or its prophages could be quiet one moment and busy the next. Many scientists had assumed that cells simply churned out a steady supply of all their proteins all the time. ...Jacob, Monod, and their colleagues at the Pasteur Institute began a series of experiments to figure out the truth.
In the darkness of the Paris movie theater, Jacob hit on an answer. The repressor is a protein that clamps on to E. coli’s DNA, blocking the production of proteins from the genes...Jacob’s idea was so elegantly simple that it seemed obvious to anyone other than a biologist.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
