Valencian scientist Santiago Grisolía dies

The scientist Santiago Grisolía, Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 1990, promoter of the First International Conference on the Human Genome and promoter of research awards King James Ihas died this Thursday at the age of 99 at the Clinical Hospital of Valencia.

Grisolía, who was admitted to this hospital, died around 6:30 a.m. this morning after complications from covid-19, sources from the Jaime I Awards Foundation and the Consell Valencià de Cultura have confirmed to EFE. adviser to the Valencian generalitat in matters of Culture that he presided over.

The Valencian biochemist participated in January of this year in the delivery of the annual report of the Consell Valencià de Cultura to the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, with whom he spoke about the evolution of the pandemic and the vaccination process. On June 7, he attended the reading of the decision of the juries of the Rei Jaume I Awards, held at the Palau de la Generalitat and chaired by President Ximo Puig.

Works with Severo Ochoa

Santiago Grisolía was born on January 6, 1923 in Valencia. The study Medicine at the Faculty of Valencia, where he was a disciple of José García Blanco, who pushed him towards his vocation as a researcher. Between 1941 and 1944 he finished his degree with honors and obtained an internship in biochemistry by competitive examination. Professor García Blanco raised the question possibility of traveling to the United States and that is how he learned about the work of Severo Ochoa, 18 years older than Grisolía, with whom he maintained a friendly relationship from 1946 until the death of the Nobel Prize winner in 1993. Grisolía began in the world of enzymology. His stay in New York with Severo Ochoa allowed him to participate in various jobs with him after Nobel Prize Spanish as the fixation of carbon dioxide (CO2) in isocitric acid.

However, despite his collaboration with New York University, Grisolía had his head set on another field of research: new technologies on isotopic markers on which hardly any trials were conducted in a few university centers in Harvard, Yale, Baltimore, St. Louis and Chicago. At the University of Chicago she joined the team of researchers who first demonstrated using the carbon 14 the fixation of carbon dioxide (CO2) in animals.

Following that success, he moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the research work was carried out that led him in a few years to become an international scientific figure for his contributions to the urea cycle. There he met his wife, Frances Thompson, an assistant professor at the madison medical school.

He also worked as a researcher at the University of Kansaswhere he established himself as an authority on biochemistry.

International Conference for the Human Genome Project

In 1977 he moved to Valencia and stood out in areas such as those related to molecular basis of liver pathologythe molecular bases of aging, the effects of alcohol on humans, the mechanisms of protein turnover and transport. He participated in the organization in 1988 in Valencia of the First International Conference for the Human Genome Project. The following year the idea arose of promoting the Rey Jaime I research awards, which increased in modalities until reaching the current six: Basic Research (since 1989), Economics (since 1991), Medical Research (since 1993), Protection of the Environment Environment (since 1995), New Technologies (since 2000), Urbanism, Landscape and Sustainability (2005 to 2010), Social Commitment (2016) and the Entrepreneur (since 2010).

Honorary Member of the Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Art of Padua (Italy), of the European Academy of Sciences and Artshonorary academician of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain and founding member of the Free College of Emeritus, Santiago Grisolía has published more than 400 scientific papers and has taught at universities around the world, especially Spain and the United States. Among his numerous recognitions, the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 1990.