Local Nobel laureate dies

Dr. George Palade, the UC San Diego Nobel laureate whose work isolating, imaging and identifying the function of minute organelles within cells prompted the Nobel committee to label him and his co-winners the fathers of cell biology, has died. He was 95.

Palade died Tuesday at his home in Del Mar after a long illness, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“Dr. Palade had a tremendous impact on the course of science, as well as a personal impact on countless colleagues and students who were inspired by his teaching and example,’’ UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox told The Times.

It was for a whole series of experiments that Palade shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two other scientists.

Palade was born on Nov. 19, 1912, in Jassy, the old capital of Moldavia, the eastern province of Romania. He immigrated to the United States in 1946.

His is survived by a wife, four children and two grandchildren.

Memorial services are pending.