Charles Philippe Leblond. 5 February 1910 -- 10 April 2007

G. Bennett
2008 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society  
In the modern world of cell biology, it is understood that virtually all cells in the body continuously synthesize a multitude of proteins, and the pathways of synthesis and secretion of these proteins are well established. The continuous turnover of cells in many tissues is also an accepted idea, and embryonic and adult stem cells are of central importance, both for the cellular economy and in malignant transformation. None of these phenomena were understood at the beginning of the career of
more » ... arles Philippe Leblond, and his extraordinary contributions to these fields have fundamentally changed our concepts of cell biology. BEGINNINGS C. P. Leblond was born in Lille, France, in 1910. His paternal grandfather, Charles, had been a building contractor who passed the business on to his son, Oscar. Unfortunately, Charles's father died when Charles was only 10 years old, leaving his mother, Jeanne (née Desmarcheliers), to raise him and his three brothers. A brilliant student with an insatiable curiosity, he debated on becoming a film producer, an architect or a biologist. In the end, he decided on biology, and enrolled in medicine at the University of Paris. He was fascinated by his first course in histology and decided to pursue this field as a career. Friends tried to dissuade him, saying 'Histology is a dead horse ... the future is in biochemistry.' Charles nonetheless became a histologist, and 50 years later reflected on the wisdom of his choice and the many exciting developments that had occurred in this field, including the rebirth of histochemistry, immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy and autoradiography-which he concluded were 'all powerful kicks for a dead horse'. Charles Leblond obtained his MD degree from the University of Paris in 1934. His doctoral research thesis described the histochemical localization of ascorbic acid, which he found to
doi:10.1098/rsbm.2007.0042 fatcat:5jzb5ao2ojddlag5ynuj4l4fne