The First Hispanic American Scientist Who Was Awarded the Nobel Prize

During his medical school year, Dr. Severo Ochoa worked with Dr. Juan Negrín at the University of Madrid.  Dr. Severo Ochoa published his first scientific note in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. While in Madrid,  Ochoa  met with Salvador Dali the painter and the poet Federico García Lorca. There were frequent lectures by Nobel Laureates such as Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. 

In Berlin, Germany, he interacted with many famous biochemists such as Dr. Otto Warburg, Dr. Fritz Lipmann, and Dr. Otto Meyerhof. That same year, Ochoa made a trip to Boston to attend the International Congress of Physiology.  

In 1930, Ochoa worked with enzyme glyoxalase, whose primary function is to detoxify substances such as methylglyoxal and other aldehydes. These compounds are byproducts of normal living biochemical processes but highly toxic to cells. The remarkable enzyme that captured Ochoa’s attention would go on to be targeted by pharmaceutical companies decades later to create antibiotics and anticancer drugs. But for Ochoa, glyoxalase was a stepping-stone to the prolific biochemical discoveries that soon followed, particularly his work on nucleic acids, including RNA. 

In 1933, Ochoa returned to Madrid, where he began to study glycolysis in the art muscle. Ochoa’s research increasingly focused on enzymatic processes and the transfer of energy. He described many of the basic steps of carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism, carbon dioxide utilization, and nucleic acid synthesis. For example, he was one of the first to demonstrate the important role of high-energy phosphates, such as ATP (adenosine triphosphate), in the storage and release of energy.  

While investigating oxidative phosphorylation, in which parties of three phosphates split apart and release hidden energy, Ochoa discovered something even more powerful: the enzyme polynucleotide phosphorylase, also known as PNPase. PNPase plays a crucial role in the synthesis of RNA by assisting with messenger RNA processing and degradation. RNA is a ‘chemical blueprint for a protein product’ and is transcribed from a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) template and carries coding information to the sites of protein synthesis, the building block of all living things. Ochoa’s discovery of this critical enzyme was later used for the synthesis of artificial RNA and the breaking of the human genetic code, which in turn made possible the sequencing of the human genome. For this discovery, Dr. Severo Ochoa was awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; sharing it with Arthur Kornberg, who synthesized DNA. 

Ochoa’s other accomplishments included the isolation of several enzymes catalyzing steps of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, as well as the biological functions of Vitamin B1. For his many scientific accomplishments, he was awarded some 30 honorary degrees from universities across the world, including in Glasgow, Oxford, Salamanca, and Brazil. Ochoa was an Honorary Professor at the University of San Marcos, Lima, Peru, and was awarded the Neuberg Medal in Biochemistry in 1951. In 1959, the year that he won the Nobel Prize, he was also honored with the Medal of the Société de Chimie Biologique and the Medal of New York University. To showcase his remarkable impact on the world of science, the asteroid 117435 Severochoa was named in his honor. He was also a recipient of the US National Medal of Science in 1978. 

Ochoa retired from New York University at the age of 69, then moved to the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, where he stayed until he was 80. In 1985, he finally left academia and returned to Spain to serve as an advisor to Spanish science policy authorities and scientists. Ochoa died in Madrid, Spain, on 1 Nov 1993 at the age of 88, at the clinic of Dr Carlos Jiménez Diaz, a professor and longtime friend.