Professor George Palade’s pioneering work on the internal workings of biological cells earned him the 1974 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. His discoveries helped to lay the foundations of modern cell biology, fully justifying the Nobel committee’s description of him as one of the fathers of cell biology.

Beginning 60 years ago he used the electron microscope and other newly developed methods, such as centrifugation, to isolate tiny structures within cells, and work out their functions. He was able to identify the function of, for example, mitochondria, the minute structures which provide the energy for the cell to work. Palade detailed their fine structure and showed that, by oxidising fats and sugars, they produce chemical energy, in the form of adenosine triphosphate, which can be used by the rest of the cell.

He also discovered and isolated ribosomes, structures composed mainly of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that are responsible for assembling the cell’s proteins. He helped to explain how proteins are moved out of the cell — when, for example, a cell in the pancreas secretes insulin. His discoveries were of considerable use in understanding disease and they provided the basis of the biotechnology industry.

George Emil Palade was born in 1912 in Jassy, the old capital of Moldavia (now Iasi, Romania). His father was a professor of philosophy and his mother was a teacher. It was thanks to this home environment, he later said, that he acquired, early on, a respect for, and love of, books and education. He attended the Al Hasdeu Lyceum in Buzau, Romania. His father wanted him to study philosophy but he decided to study medicine instead and, in 1930, he enrolled at the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest.

Influenced by his professors of anatomy and biochemistry, he developed a strong interest in basic biomedical sciences and began working in the anatomy laboratory while still in medical school. He did six years of hospital training, mainly in internal medicine, and worked for a doctorate in microscopic anatomy. After receiving his MD in 1940 he did a stint as an assistant in internal medicine before returning to his anatomical studies.

Between 1941 and 1946 he was a lecturer in clinical medicine at Bucharest University. He briefly practised medicine and during the war served for a while in the medical corps of the Romanian Army.

In 1946 he went to the US for further studies and worked for a few months in the biology department at New York University — it was there that he came to fully appreciate the potential of electron microscopy to advance the field of cell biology.

In the autumn of that same year he became a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, where he went on to conduct the groundbreaking research for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

In 1948 he was appointed assistant professor at Rockefeller, thereafter rising in due course to a full professor and then head of the department. He was naturalised as a US citizen in 1952.

In 1973 he moved to Yale as professor and chair of the new department of cell biology. He became an adviser to the Dean in 1983. In 1990 he joined the department of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) as Professor of Medicine in Residence, and UCSD’s first Dean for Scientific Affairs. At UCSD he created one of the most highly respected cell biology programmes in the US.

He held the posts of Professor of Medicine and Dean until he retired in 2001 at the age of 88, whereupon UCSD established the George E. Palade Endowed Chair to honour him.

As well as being a first-rate scientist and researcher, Palade was a fine teacher and he oversaw a large number of postdoctoral researchers. Among his most notable writings are his books Major Basic Research Discoveries (1991) and (co-written with Walter G. Rosen) Cell Biology: Basic Research and Applications (1986).

In addition to numerous honours and honorary degrees, Palade was awarded the US National Medal of Science in 1986 for “pioneering discoveries of a host of fundamental, highly organised structures in living cells”. He was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

He was also something of a polymath of the old school — in addition to taking a close interest in history, particularly Roman, he was knowledgeable about art, literature and music.

Palade’s first wife, Irina Malaxa, predeceased him, and he is survived by his second wife, Marilyn Gist Farquhar, whom he married in 1970 and a daughter and a son from his first marriage.

Professor George Palade, cell biologist, Nobel prize-winner, was born on November 19, 1912. He died on October 7, 2008, aged 95