Un Record a Severo Ochoa: importància de la seva obra i llegat científic

Abstract

Severo Ochoa is the best known Spanish biochemist and the one whose influence in the development of the science of the country in the last years is beyond doubt. Two characteristics in his biography must be pointed out: his long professional life and his fecund scientific production in amount, quality and diversity. The main contributions of Ochoa to the development of the biochemistry and molecular biology were: the studies that took to identify enzymes responsible for the reactions, mechanisms and regulation of part of the intermediary metabolism (pyruvate oxidation, carbon fixation, the enzymes of the citric acid cycle); the discovery of polynucleotide phosphorylase and the synthesis in vitro of RNA; the studies to resolve the genetic code; and the studies on the mechanisms and the regulation of the protein synthesis in prokaryotics and eukaryotics. The merit of his works was recognized with the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine in 1959 jointly with Arthur Kornberg, by their discoveries in the mechanisms of the biological synthesis of the nucleic acids.