Camille Delezenne

Who is Camille Delezenne?

Camille Delezenne was a French physician and biologist born in Genech, a town in the department of Nord.

He studied medicine in Lille, obtaining his hospital internship in 1890. In 1892 he supported his doctorate with a dissertation on parapneumonic pleurisy. Afterwards he undertook experiments on blood circulation at the Wertheimer laboratory in Lille. During this time period, he also served as mayor of Genech.

In 1896 he was appointed associate professor of physiology at the University of Montpellier. At Hédon's laboratory he conducted systematic investigations of blood coagulation in vertebrates, demonstrating the hepatic origin of antithrombin and describing the blood coagulation system of birds.

In 1900 he relocated to Paris, where he worked as a lecturer in the laboratory of physiological chemistry at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. With assistance from Emile Duclaux and Elie Metchnikoff, he was appointed head of the physiology laboratory at the Pasteur Institute, where his primary focus is research of enzymes, venoms and toxins. In 1902 he demonstrated a link between the action of enterokinase in mobilizing pancreatic digestive enzymes and the phenomena of hemolysis.