This project (2018-1-ES01-KA203-050606) has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This web site reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This web site reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Letter from George E. Palade - picture


Place where the object is located
The original letter is in the collection of the Palade family from Bucharest, relatives of George Emil Palade. A copy was sent by Prof. Zeletin to be exhibited in the collection "Grigore T. Popa" in the Museum of Medical History of UMF Iasi.
Story of the object
The letter is dated 31st December 1997 and has the San Diego California University's header and coat of arms/logo.
Although the letter is written by a Romanian to a Romanian, professor George E. Palade prefers to write in English rather in Romanian. It is written in an informal style because it is addressed with the pet name. The letter is a congratulation for the initiative of the restoring the name of Grigore T. Popa, which was destroyed by the communists.
C. D. Zeletin, to whom Prof. Palade sent the letter, who was also his nephew, mentions in his books the appreciation that the Nobel laureate for physiology and medicine showed to his master, Grigore T. Popa. Professor Popa recommended to his American colleagues the young George Emil Palade and so he was able to enter the laboratories that allowed him to see what others did not see and to open new horizons in cell biology. The information in the letters provides the history of medicine with extremely important data, which official documents often do not include.
Label
George Emil Palade (born in 1912, Iași, Romania – dead in 2008, Del Mar, SUA). In 1946 he married and moved to the United States, where he worked as a researcher at Rockefeller University in New York. Here he meets his colleague Albert Claude, who invites him to work together at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where he was head of the Department of Cell Biology. He worked here until 1973 when he transferred to Yale University (head of the Department of Cell Biology), where he worked until 1990, when he began working at the University of San Diego, becoming dean.
Constantin Dimoftache Zeletin (1935, Bacău County - 2020, Bucharest) was a doctor and biophysicist, teacher, essayist, translator and poet. He was the one who took care of his family tree and that of his uncle George Emil Palade and edited a book with Anca-Michaela Israil and Radu Șerban Palade, entitled Centenar George Emil Palade, 1912-2008. Laureat al Premiului Nobel pentru Medicină, 1974 - Crestomație de familie, publicat la editura Spandugino, București, 2012.
The photo is of a letter that George E. Palade, Dean of the School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, sent to Prof C. D. Zeletin in Romania. Palade commends the Romanian physician’s efforts to honour the memory of Grigore T. Popa, “a man of great honesty and courage” who was oppressed by the communist regime. Furthermore, Palade is grateful for the decision of the Medical School of Iasi to take Grigore T. Popa’s name, a decision that could not have been more inspired since “he was much more at home in Iasi than in Bucharest”.