George Emil Palade: charismatic virtuoso of cell biology.

George Palade has created, shared and passed on a multidisciplinary view of the functional organization, biogenesis and dynamics of organelles. His open-mindedness and tenacity, along with his rigour and sense of intellectual elegance, have been remarkable. This focus on the logic of organelles defined a crucial turning point in biomedical science. The following article sketches Palade's research, as part of a larger community that flourished after the Second World War.