Profile of Ginés Morata

Abstract

Gines Morata grew up in remote village in southeast Spain. As a child, he says, he had no scientific role models or sources of inspiration. Yet, by the end of graduate school, Morata had made two groundbreaking discoveries in Drosophila that are still influencing the field of developmental biology, including the discoveries of developmental compartments and the phenomenon of cell competition. His Inaugural Article examines how mutant cells in Drosophila outsmart cell competition to form tumors (1). For his accomplishments, Morata has received multiple awards, including Spain’s Prince of Asturias Prize for Science and Technology and foreign membership in the Royal Society in London. A research professor at the Spanish National Research Council and the Autonomous University of Madrid, Morata was elected as an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2018. Morata grew up in a modest household in Rioja, Almeria, Spain. His father was a traffic cop, and his mother stayed home with their four sons and a daughter. Although neither parent had any formal education, both emphasized the importance of school, says the second-born Morata. The family did not have money for secondary school, let alone college, but Morata’s good grades earned him scholarships that sent him first to the nearby city of Almeria for secondary school and, later, to the Complutense University in Madrid for college. Gines Morata. Image credit: Jose A. Perez (Centro de Biologia Molecular, Madrid, Spain). Although Morata loved watching birds and snakes as a child, he did not feel any affinity for biology at that age. When he went off to Madrid for college, he thought he might study mathematics or physics, inspired by a particularly adept mathematics teacher. However, a chance discovery helped change his course. “I read a book by Linus Pauling, where he made the point …