Christian de Duve (born October 2, 1917) is a biochemist. de Duve was born in Thames-Ditton, Great Britain, as a son of Belgian emigrants. They returned to Belgium in 1920. de Duve studied at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he became professor in 1947. He specialized in subcellular biochemistry. He discoverd the peroxisomes.

de Duve was awarded the shared Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1974, together with Albert Claude and George E. Palade, for describing the structure and function of organelles in biological cells. His later years have been mostly devoted to origin of life studies, which he admits is still a speculative field (see thioester).

Bibliography

  • A Guided Tour of the Living Cell (1984) ISBN 0716750023
  • Blueprint For a Cell: The Nature and Origin of Life (1991) ISBN 0892784105
  • Vital Dust: Life As a Cosmic Imperative (1996) ISBN 0465090451
  • Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning (2002) ISBN 0195156056