Stéphane Leduc

Timeline

1. 1853–1883

   Born in Nantes, trained in Paris

   He is born in Nantes in 1853. He studies at the Faculté des sciences de Paris from 1871 to 1874, then at the Faculté de médecine de Paris until 1883.

2. 1892–1896

   Municipal councillor of Nantes

   He serves as a municipal councillor of Nantes from 1892 to 1896.

3. 1906–1907

   Osmotic growths and a rejection

   He publishes Les bases physiques de la vie et la biogenèse with Masson in Paris in 1906. In 1907, the Académie des Sciences excludes from its Comptes Rendus his report on diffusion and osmosis experiments, because it touches on spontaneous generation.

4. 1910–1912

   Naming synthetic biology

   As a professor at the medical school in Nantes, he publishes Théorie physico-chimique de la vie et générations spontanées in 1910 and introduces the term synthetic biology, a science that tests biological ideas by reproducing organic forms through osmotic growth. The English version, The Mechanism of Life, appears in 1911, and La biologie synthétique, étude de biophysique follows in 1912.

5. 1913

   Académie nationale de médecine

   He becomes a member of the Académie nationale de médecine in 1913.

6. 1921

   Officier de la Légion d'honneur

   He is made an Officier de la Légion d'honneur by decree in 1921.

7. 1939

   Death in Nantes

   He dies in Nantes in 1939.

8. 2007–2015

   Revisited by later scholars

   Joost Rekveld notes in 2007 striking similarities between some of Leduc's claims and the claims of artificial life researchers. By 2009, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent describes biomimetic chemistry and synthetic biology as descendants of his program. Raphaël Clément argues in 2015 that his physical approach to life, long forsaken, becomes more topical as developmental biology turns to physics.