Piotr SÅ‚onimski

Piotr Slonimsky ( born November 9, 1922 in Warsaw, † April 25, 2009 in Paris) was a French molecular biologist and geneticist.

Slonimsky took part in the Warsaw Uprising, where his father, a zoologist, fell victim to. After the war he continued his medical studies and in 1947 at the University of Krakow doctorate ( MD ). He continued his studies in Paris at the Sorbonne, where he received his doctorate in 1952. There he studied in the laboratory of Boris Ephrussi genetics of mitochondrial DNA in yeast cells. This also formed the study area further his research, which eventually led to the first full decoding of the genome of a eukaryotic (yeast ) ( 12.6 million base pairs ), where his laboratory was much involved. Slonimsky was a professor of genetics at the University of Paris VI in 1971 and director of the Laboratory of Physiological Genetics at the Centre for Molecular Genetics at the CNRS in Gif- sur- Yvette.1991 he retired. One of his main areas of work remained the genetics mitochondrial genes.

He was since 1974 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, was a member of the Polish and Belgian Academies of Sciences, the Academia Europaea and the Academie des Sciences. He was more honorary doctorates and received the 1985 Gold Medal of the CNRS. In 1978 he received the Prix Charles -Léopold Mayer.