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Christian de Duve Dies

Christian de Duve, who won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, has died, the New York Times reports. He was 95. De Duve discovered the lysosome and received the Nobel along with Albert Claude, who discovered mitochondria, and George Palade, who uncovered the ribosome, "for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell," according to the Nobel Foundation.

Those discoveries, the Times notes, paved the way for modern cell biology, and de Duve's finding particularly influenced the study of Tay-Sachs disease and other genetic lysosomal storage disorders. "We are sick because our cells are sick," de Duve said.