Palade was a member of the faculty at
University of Bucharest until 1946, when he went to the United States He later joined Claude at the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In 1952, Palade became a
naturalized citizen of the United States. He worked at the Rockefeller Institute (1958–1973), and was a professor at
Yale University Medical School (1973–1990), and
University of California, San Diego (1990–2008). At UCSD, Palade was Professor of Medicine in Residence (Emeritus) in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, as well as a Dean for Scientific Affairs (Emeritus), in the School of Medicine at
La Jolla, California. In 1970, he was awarded the
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from
Columbia University, together with
Renato Dulbecco (winner of the 1975
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) "
for discoveries concerning the functional organization of the cell that were seminal events in the development of modern cell biology", related to his previous research carried out at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. His Nobel lecture, delivered on December 12, 1974, was entitled:
"Intracellular Aspects of the Process of Protein Secretion", published in 1992 by the Nobel Prize Foundation, He was elected an Honorary
member of the Romanian Academy in 1975. He received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement in 1975. In 1981, Palade became a founding member of the
World Cultural Council. In 1985, he became the founding editor of the
Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology. In 1988 he was also elected an Honorary Member of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences (ARA). Palade was the first Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University. Presently, the Chair of Cell Biology at Yale is named the "George Palade Professorship". Palade was known for his support and mentorship with young scientists and that colleagues of his saw him regularly engaged with graduate students at conferences and encouraged innovative experimental approaches that would be normally been seen as un-regular. Including the use of electron microscopy in the secretory pathway research. At the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Palade used
electron microscopy to study the internal organization of such cell structures as
ribosomes,
mitochondria,
chloroplasts, the
Golgi apparatus, and others. His most important discovery was made while using an experimental strategy known as a
pulse-chase analysis. In the experiment Palade and his colleagues were able to confirm an existing hypothesis that a secretory pathway exists and that the
Rough ER and the Golgi apparatus function together. He was a member of the
American Association for Anatomy.
Palade's coworkers and approach in the 1960s The following is a concise excerpt from Palade's Autobiography appearing in the Nobel Award documents ==Personal life==