Marianne Grunberg-Manago
French biochemist (1921–2013)
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In early 2026 she was confirmed to be one of the 72 women to have their names added to those of the men already engraved on the Eiffel Tower.
Early life and education
Marianne Grunberg was born in Petrograd, Russia (now St. Petersburg), on January 6, 1921 to Catherine (née Riasanoff) and Wladimir Grunberg, an agent for artists. From her mother's side, she was descended from the Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and the Russian historian Vasily Tatishchev. When she was nine months old, her parents emigrated from Russia, first to Germany and then to France to avoid the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. She lived in Nice from the age of 12 and when she was 17, she passed the baccalauréat.
After first obtaining a qualification in comparative literature (1940), she embarked on scientific studies. She graduated at the University of Paris in 1943 and in 1947 went on to defend her doctorate thesis.
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Career
Following her doctorate, she undertook research in the marine biology laboratory in Roscoff in Brittany. She then moved to the United States with her husband, artist Armand Manago Guerin V.
There she first worked at Irwin Gunsalus' laboratory at the University of Illinois and then in 1954 at Severo Ochoa's moledcular biology laboratory ar the New York University School of Medicine. While there, in 1955 she discovered the first nucleic-acid-synthesizing enzyme, polynucleotide phosphorylase. Initially, everyone thought the new enzyme was an RNA polymerase used by E. coli cells to make long chains of RNA from separate nucleotides.
Although the new enzyme could link a few nucleotides together, the reaction was highly reversible and it later became clear that the enzyme polynucleotide phosphorylase usually catalyzes the breakdown of RNA, not its synthesis. The enzyme was extraordinarily useful and important. Almost immediately, Marshall Nirenberg and J. Heinrich Matthaei put it to use to form the first three-nucleotide RNA codons, which coded for the amino acid phenylalanine. This first step in cracking the genetic code entirely depended on the availability of Grunberg-Manago’s enzyme. Severo Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg won the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the synthesis of the nucleic acids RNA and DNA".
Grunberg-Munago returned to France in 1956 to work at the Institut de biologie physico-chimique.
She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978, a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1982, and an International member of the American Philosophical Society in 1992.
Grunberg-Manago was the first woman president of the International Union of Biochemistry (1985–1988), and she was also the first woman to preside over the French Academy of Sciences (1995–1996). She was the first woman to lead the Société Française de Biochimie et Biologie Moléculaire in 1975.
Late in her career, Grunberg-Manago was named emeritus director of research at CNRS, France's National Center for Scientific Research.
Personal life
Marianne Grunberg married the Primitive artist Armand Munago in 1947 and added his surname to her own. The couple had two children.
Grunberg-Manago died in January 2013, three days before her 92nd birthday. She was buried with her husband and parents in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery near Paris.