BUCHAREST, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - George Emil Palade, an American biologist of Romanian origin who shared the Nobel medicine prize in 1974 for his work on cell biology, died Wednesday aged 96, Romanian media reported.

Palade died in his home in the southern California city of San Diego, according to the president of the University of Medicine of Bucharest.

He split the Nobel with Belgium's Christian de Duve and Albert Claude for their discoveries on the structural and functional organisation of the cell.

Former US president Ronald Reagan awared him the National Medal of Science in 1986.

Palade, who according to local media left Romania for the United States in 1946, actively supported the development of cell biology in his native country.

His death came two days after the 2008 Nobel medicine prize was awarded to European scientists credited with the discoveries of the viruses behind AIDS and cervical cancer.

France's Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, who shared one half of the award, discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, one of the biggest scourges of modern times.

Harald zur Hausen of Germany won the other half of the award for going against the then-current dogma and claiming that a virus, the human papilloma virus (HPV), causes cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.