The French microbiologist, protozoologist, and geneticist André Lwoff (1902-1994) was influential in the creation of the European Organization of Molecular Biology in 1964.

André Lwoff, born May 8, 1902, at Ainay-le-Château (Allier), was the son of Russian parents recently settled in France. He studied science and medicine at the University of Paris and was attached to the Pasteur Institute from 1921, becoming head of the department of microbic physiology and later a professor. He performed services for which he was awarded the Médaille de la Resistance in 1964 and became commandeur of the Légion d'Honneur in 1966. He shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1965 for his research on episomes.

Early bacteriologists had considered bacteria to be primitive forms of life, (protista) more closely akin to animals than plants, because bacteria lacked chlorophyll and were believed to be devoid of such defined structures as...