Severo Ochoa
Autonomous University of Madrid
September 24, 1905 - November 1, 1993
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Scientific Discipline: Biochemistry Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1957)
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Severo Ochoa won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for his observations of the mechanism for nucleic acid synthesis, which shed light on how RNA viruses replicate. He focused much of his research on enzyme behavior in basal metabolism and the role of carbon dioxide within biological oxidation. He received the National Medal of Science in 1979.
Ochoa attended the University of Madrid Medical School. He accepted a position as lecturer in physiology at the University of Madrid in 1931. Traveling to London to the National Institute of Medical Research, he began his research on enzymes He served as a lecturer in physiology and biochemistry in 1934 and later became head of the Physiology Division of the Institute of Medical Research in Madrid. In 1942 he made his way to the United States, where he joined the faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as an instructor and research associate in pharmacology. He then moved to the New York University School of Medicine, where he was an assistant professor of biochemistry, professor of pharmacology, and chairman of the Biochemistry Department.
