Claude, Albert [key], 1899–1983, Belgian biologist, b. Longlier, M.D., Univ. of Liège, 1928. He joined the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller Univ.) in 1929 and spent his entire career there. During the 1930s and 40s, Claude did pioneering work in the use of the electron microscope to study animal cells. He also contributed to the development of differential centrifugation, a technique in which tissues or cells are homogenized and the various cell components then separated out. The techniques yielded new information about cell structure and function (Claude discovered cell mitochondria, for example), and laid the foundation for the modern discipline of cell biology. Claude was co-recipient of the 1974 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Christian de Duve and George Palade for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell.
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