Born in Auxerre (Yonne) on February 12, 1904. Died November 19, 1996.
Education and professional career
Alsatian ancestry on his father's side, Lorraine on his mother's. After the war, his grandparents opted for France, where his father pursued a university career. Etienne Wolff began his studies at the Lycée d'Elbeuf, continued at the Lycée de Rouen, then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.
- 1921 : Licencié ès-lettres
- 1925 : Licencié ès-sciences
- 1928 : Agrégé in natural sciences
- 1936 : Doctorat ès-Sciences thesis
- 1939 : Mobilized as a lieutenant in an artillery regiment on the Maginot Line, he was taken prisoner in June
- 1940 : Sent to Edelbach Oflag, then to Lübeck Special Oflag in 1944, from where he was liberated in 1945
- 1930 : Teacher at Colmar high school
- 1931 : Assistant at the Strasbourg Faculty of Medicine
- 1936 : Senior lecturer at the Strasbourg Faculty of Science
- 1942 : Professor, Strasbourg Faculty of Science
- 1955 : Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Experimental Embryology
- 1965 -1975 : Director of the Collège de France. He is also Director of the CNRS Institute of Experimental Embryology and Teratology and President of the International Institute of Embryology
Awards and honors
- Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor
- Commander of the National Order of Merit
- Commandeur des Palmes Académiques
- Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
- Honorarydoctorate from several foreign universities
- 1959 : Associate member of the Académie Royale de Belgique
- 1959 : Foreign member of the Royal Academy of Sweden
- 1963 : Member of the Académie des Sciences de l'Institut de France
- 1966 : Member of the Académie de Médecine
- 1970 : Associate member of the Académie de Pharmacie
- 1971 : The French Academy elected him to the chair of Louis Pasteur-Vallery-Radot on October 28, 1971