Severo Ochoa de Albornoz (Spanish: [seˈβeɾo oˈtʃoa ðe alβoɾˈnoθ]; September 24, 1905 – November 1, 1993) was a Spanish doctor and scientist who studied living things and chemicals. He won the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg for discovering how DNA is made in living things.

Early life and education

Ochoa was born in Luarca, Asturias, Spain. His father was Severo Manuel Ochoa, a lawyer and businessman, and his mother was Carmen de Albornoz. Ochoa was the nephew of Álvaro de Albornoz, who was a president of the Second Spanish Republic in exile and a former foreign minister, and a cousin of Aurora de Albornoz, a poet and critic. His father died when Ochoa was seven years old, and he and his mother moved to Málaga, where he attended school from elementary through high school. His interest in biology was inspired by the work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish doctor and Nobel Prize winner. In 1923, Ochoa entered the University of Madrid Medical School, hoping to study with Ramón y Cajal, but Ramón y Cajal had retired. Instead, he studied with Pedro Arrupe and Juan Negrín, who was his teacher.

Negrín encouraged Ochoa and another student, José Valdecasas, to separate creatinine from urine. The two students successfully completed this task and also created a method to measure small amounts of creatinine in muscles. In the summer of 1927, Ochoa worked at the University of Glasgow with D. Noel Paton on creatine metabolism and improved his English skills. He also refined the testing method further. After returning to Spain, Ochoa and Valdecasas submitted a paper about their work to the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The paper was quickly accepted, marking the start of Ochoa's career in biochemistry.

Ochoa completed his undergraduate medical degree in the summer of 1929 and decided to study abroad again to gain more research experience. His work on creatine and creatinine led to an invitation to join Otto Meyerhof's laboratory at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem in 1929. At that time, the institute was a center for the fast-growing field of biochemistry, allowing Ochoa to meet and work with scientists such as Otto Heinrich Warburg, Carl Neuberg, Einar Lundsgaard, and Fritz Lipmann, in addition to Meyerhof, who had won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine less than ten years earlier.

In 1930, Ochoa returned to Madrid to complete research for his MD thesis, which he defended that year. In 1931, after earning his MD, he married Carmen García Cobián. They did not have any children. He then began postdoctoral research at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, where he worked with Henry Hallett Dale. His research in London focused on the enzyme glyoxalase and marked two important changes in Ochoa's career. First, it began his lifelong interest in enzymes. Second, the project was at the forefront of the rapidly developing study of intermediary metabolism.

Career and research

In 1933, the Ochoas returned to Madrid, where he began studying glycolysis in heart muscle. Within two years, he was offered the directorship of the Physiology Section in a newly created Institute for Medical Research at the University of Madrid Medical School. Unfortunately, the appointment happened just as the Spanish Civil War began. Ochoa decided that trying to perform research in such an environment would destroy his "chances of becoming a scientist." Thus, "after much thought, my wife and I decided to leave Spain." In September 1936, they began what he later called the "wander years" as they traveled from Spain to Germany, to England, and ultimately to the United States within four years.

Ochoa left Spain and returned to Meyerhof's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology, now relocated in Heidelberg, where Ochoa found a profoundly changed research focus. During his 1930 visit, the laboratory work was "classical physiology," which Ochoa described as "one could see muscles twitching everywhere." By 1936, Meyerhof's laboratory had become one of the world's foremost biochemical facilities focused on processes such as glycolysis and fermentation. Rather than studying muscles "twitch," the lab was now purifying and characterizing the enzymes involved in muscle action and those involved in yeast fermentation.

From then until 1938, he held many positions and worked with many people at many places. For example, Otto Meyerhof appointed him Guest Research Assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg for one year. From 1938 until 1941, he was Demonstrator and Nuffield Research Assistant at the University of Oxford.

Ochoa then went to the United States, where he again held many positions at several universities. Between 1940 and 1942, Ochoa worked for Washington University's School of Medicine. In 1942, he was appointed research associate in medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and there subsequently became assistant professor of biochemistry (1945), professor of pharmacology (1946), professor of biochemistry (1954), and chair of the department of biochemistry.

In 1956, he became an American citizen. He was elected to both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957. In 1959, Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid." He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1961.

Ochoa continued research on protein synthesis and replication of RNA viruses until 1985, when he returned to now democratic Spain where he was a science advisor. Ochoa was also a recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1978.

Severo Ochoa died in Madrid, Spain on 1 November 1993. Carmen García Cobián had died in 1986.

Long after his death, Spanish actress Sara Montiel claimed that she and Severo Ochoa were involved in a romantic relationship in the 1950s, as stated in an interview in Spanish newspaper El País: "The great love of my life was Severo Ochoa. But it was an impossible love. Clandestine. He was married, and besides, him doing research and me doing films wasn't a good match."

A research center that was planned in the 1970s was opened in 1975 (CBM) in the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). After his death, it was named the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa.

In Leganés, Madrid, a hospital bears his name, as does the Madrid Metro station serving it, Hospital Severo Ochoa.

The asteroid 117435 Severochoa is also named in his honor.

In 2003, the Spanish General Post Office (Correos) issued a €0.76 postage stamp honoring Ochoa, as one of a pair featuring Spanish medical Nobel Prize winners alongside Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

In June 2011, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp honoring him, as part of the American Scientists collection, along with Melvin Calvin, Asa Gray, and Maria Goeppert-Mayer. This was the third volume in the series.

The main road into the tourist resort Benidorm is named Avenida Dr. Severo Ochoa in his honor.