People from Nord (French department)

François Vérove (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa veʁɔv]; 22 January 1962 – 29 September 2021), also known as Le Grêlé ([lə ɡʁɛle, ɡʁele], the "Pockmarked Man"), was a French serial killer, rapist and police officer who murdered at least three people between 1986 and 1994 in the Île-de-France region. He received his nickname from acne scars seen on his face by witnesses following his first murder. Vérove committed suicide in September 2021 upon realizing that he was about to be identified.
Vérove's first murder, that of 11-year-old Cécile Bloch, took place in the 19th arrondissement of Paris in 1986. The following year he murdered two adults in the 4th arrondissement. He was linked to two further murders in 1991 and 1994, as well as two rapes in 1987 and 1994. During his crime spree, Vérove belonged to various French police forces; he was a member of the National Gendarmerie between 1983 and 1988, serving as a motorcyclist in the Republican Guard, then became an officer in the National Police in Paris until his retirement in 2019. He briefly held elected office as a municipal councillor in Prades-le-Lez, Hérault, between 2019 and 2020.
On 24 September 2021, Vérove received a police summons to provide a DNA sample as part of an investigation into the Bloch killing. His wife reported him missing on 27 September. Two days later, Vérove killed himself by barbiturate overdose in a rented flat in Le Grau-du-Roi, Gard. He left behind a suicide note in which he confessed to his crimes.

Camille Delezenne (10 June 1868 – 7 July 1932) was a French physician and biologist born in Genech, a town in the department of Nord.
He studied medicine in Lille, obtaining his hospital internship in 1890. In 1892 he supported his doctorate with a dissertation on parapneumonic pleurisy. Afterwards he undertook experiments on blood circulation at the Wertheimer laboratory in Lille. During this time period, he also served as mayor of Genech (1893–95).
In 1896 he was appointed associate professor of physiology at the University of Montpellier. At Edouard Hédon's laboratory he conducted systematic investigations of blood coagulation in vertebrates, demonstrating the hepatic origin of antithrombin and describing the blood coagulation system of birds.
In 1900 he relocated to Paris, where he worked as a lecturer in the laboratory of physiological chemistry at the École des hautes etudes. With assistance from Emile Duclaux (1840–1904) and Elie Metchnikoff (1845–1916), he was appointed head of the physiology laboratory at the Pasteur Institute, where his primary focus was research of enzymes, venoms and toxins. In 1902 he demonstrated a link between the action of enterokinase in mobilizing pancreatic digestive enzymes and the phenomena of hemolysis. He also showed that certain microbial cultures, snake venoms, and some plants and poisonous mushrooms have diastases that act on the pancreatic juice in the same way as does enterokinase.
In 1902 Delezenne became a member of the Société de biologie, in 1903 he was co-founder of the Bulletin de l'Institut Pasteur with Amédée Borrel (1867–1936), Félix Mesnil (1868–1938), Gabriel Bertrand (1867–1962), Alexandre Besredka (1870–1940) and Auguste-Charles Marie (1864–1935), and in 1910 became a professor at the Pasteur Institute. In 1912 he was elected as a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine, and in 1929 became a member of the Assemblée de l'Institut Pasteur.

Jean Piat (23 September 1924 – 18 September 2018) was a French actor and writer.

Casimir-Joseph Davaine (19 March 1812 – 14 October 1882) was a French physician known for his work in the field of microbiology. He was a native of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, department of Nord.
In 1850, Davaine along with French pathologist Pierre François Olive Rayer, discovered a certain microorganism in the blood of diseased and dying sheep. In the diseased blood, Rayer and Davaine observed the bacillus that is known today as Bacillus anthracis, the causative bacterium of anthrax. Soon afterwards, Rayer published a description of the bacillus in a paper titled, Inoculation du sang de rate (1850).In 1863, Davaine demonstrated that the bacillus could be directly transmitted from one animal to another. He was able to identify the causative organism, but was unaware of its true etiology. Later on, German microbiologist Robert Koch investigated the etiology of Bacillus anthracis, and discovered its ability to produce "resting spores" that could stay alive in the soil for a long period of time to serve as a future source of infection.Casimir Davaine is also credited for pioneer work in the study of sepsis (blood poisoning).