Salk Institute mourns the loss of Suzanne Bourgeois, founding member

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Salk Institute mourns the loss of Suzanne Bourgeois, founding member

Gene regulation pioneer and the Institute's unofficial historian, Bourgeois died at age 94

LA JOLLA-Suzanne Bourgeois, PhD, Salk professor emerita, founding member of the Salk Institute, and pioneer in gene regulation research, died at her home in Del Mar, California, on March 14, 2026. She was 94 years old.

As the founder of Salk's Regulatory Biology Laboratory, Bourgeois studied the regulation of gene expression-the process cells use to turn genes "on" or "off"-using the bacterial lactose (lac) operon as a model system. In the 1960s, when little was known about the circuit, Bourgeois demonstrated that the lac repressor was a protein. She used the system to characterize, for the first time, the interaction between a regulatory protein and DNA. She later studied gene regulation in animal cells and eventually identified compounds that could help reverse multidrug resistance in cancer. As a testament to the enduring rigor of her work, Bourgeois continued to receive National Institutes of Health funding for her research through 1994.

"We are deeply saddened by Suzanne's passing, but I am so grateful for having known such an inspiring scientist and a wonderful person all these years," says Salk President Gerald Joyce, MD, PhD. "The scientific community has lost a brilliant mind, and Salk, a link to the founding of the Institute. She will be greatly missed."

Bourgeois was born in Brussels, Belgium. She moved to the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1961 to work with biochemist Jacques Monod, PhD, with whom she also completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Paris/Sorbonne in 1966.

It was at the Pasteur Institute that Bourgeois met Melvin "Mel" Cohn, PhD. They married in 1963 and moved to La Jolla to help build the Institute at the request of Jonas Salk, who developed the first effective polio vaccine. Cohn died in 2018.

After retiring from her laboratory, Bourgeois realized that she was one of the last witnesses to the amazing founding of the Salk Institute, and she made it her mission to document that history. In many ways, Bourgeois became the Salk Institute's unofficial historian with her personal account of the origins and early years of the Institute. At one point during her research, she discovered several forgotten filing cabinets tucked away on Salk's campus. After taking a closer look, she realized she had struck gold. Filed away in the old cabinets were the Salk Institute's early archives, which she saved from being destroyed. Her papers are now part of the UC San Diego library archives.

In 2014, Bourgeois published a book, Genesis of the Salk Institute: The Epic of Its Founders, chronicling the dynamic history of the Institute and the key players who took part in its creation. She told the story of how and why, although born far apart, the founders of the Salk Institute eventually gathered in La Jolla in the early 1960s to create an exceptional institution.

Carol Bodas, Salk's librarian, who had the unique opportunity to work closely with Bourgeois, recalls her conversations with Cohn and Bourgeois about their decision to join Jonas Salk's vision to create a world-class research institution.

"They had many offers, and instead of accepting a position at a university with an already established research program, they recognized that they made the right decision to be part of Salk and scientific freedom, together with other distinguished scientists in that area," Bodas says.

In addition to her scientific, archival, and narrative contributions to the Institute, Bourgeois also established the Suzanne Bourgeois Women & Science Fund.

"This fund continues to be a critical resource for fueling discovery and building scientific careers," says Salk Chief Science Officer Jan Karlseder, PhD, who had the privilege of being recruited to Salk to work in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory that Bourgeois had founded.

"Salk is forever grateful for Suzanne's support over the years. Her commitment to enabling the training of the next generation of scientists reflects her forward-thinking vision for the Institute."

In quieter moments, Bourgeois loved nature-specifically greenery, flowers, and trees-and spending time in Del Mar, where she lived.