The society of biochemistry and molecular biology of Uruguay (SBBM)

Abstract

Uruguay is a small country, geographically, but also in population (about 3,000,000 people). It was born as an independent country at the beginning of the 19th century, so it is also young. It was conceived as a buffer state between the two giant neighbors that came to be Argentina and Brazil. It was born and developed as a consequence of several local civil wars that destroyed the unity of the Spanish speaking community. In addition, unity was also spoiled by the tough imperial policy of two European countries (UK and France) against the decadent Spanish Empire, because they extended the Napoleonic wars across the ocean into South America. The 20th century began with the last big civil war in Uruguay and the country became divided into the capital (Montevideo) and the remainder, with an agronomical economy, constituting what was a major drawback until now, with half of the population living in Montevideo and the other half dispersed in small cities with very few people, living from cattle rearing and agriculture with an economy based on ‘latifundio’ (large, run-down landed estates that can reach 100,000 hectare or more in size). But, the geographical location between Argentina and Brazil permitted this little country also to gain some advantages from both, especially from the cultural point of view. Biological research began, mostly, as a result of visionary persons’ individual efforts. Professions, like medicine, veterinary or agronomical sciences, were developed as a necessity to solve practical problems to improve the main production of the country. They became the seed for the development of science and research. We will mention the initiative of a selfmade man directed exclusively to basic sciences, Clemente Estable, a primary school teacher, interested not only in biology but in philosophy, art and education. He obtained a Fellowship to learn neurobiological research with the master of his time, Santiago Ramon y Cajal (a Spanish Nobel Price Laureate). After several years of profitable study he returned to Uruguay with a self-imposed mission: to introduce basic science to his people and to found an institution devoted to basic biological research. This institution, now known as the Instituto de Investigaciones Biologicas Clemente Estable (IIBCE, Clemente Estable Institute for Biological Research), was born in the third decade of the 20th century as a small laboratory, but in 1950 was moved to its present position, and one of its former Departments became the Department of Biochemistry directed by a woman named M. I. Ardao (which was also pioneering for this time). It was an official demonstration of the interest of the country in so modern and profitable a discipline, because in the School of Medicine and the School of Chemistry there were movements that also finally developed similar biochemical education and research departments. In the 1950s, the School of Chemistry developed a two-month full-time biochemistry course for professors interested in this discipline. They invited Professor Guzman Barron (a Peruvian biochemist living in Chicago, USA) to develop the course. This was the seed of what later became the Department of Biochemistry of the School of Chemistry. The School of Medicine in a similar move invited Professor Totter (USA) who shared research with the Uruguayan Professor E. Prodanov, one of the founders of the School of Medicine Biochemistry Department. Almost simultaneously, in 1960 some of the attendees of this course founded the first Uruguayan Society of Biochemistry and were thereafter destined to be the leaders of several biochemistry laboratories in different Schools of the University, or the IIBCE. We will mention some of them: E. Prodanov, C. Scazzocchio, C. Estable Puig, W. DeAngelis, A. de Betolaza, M. Calcagno, G. Martinez, G. Freire, E. Lasalvia, I. Korch C. M. Franchi and M. I. Ardao. Other important contributors to biochemical research were R. Caldeiro-Barcia and J. Brovetto. The first Uruguayan Society of Biochemistry had almost 50 members who developed several events related with its constitutional goals. But when, in 1973, a dictatorship was installed in Uruguay, the University was closed and several professors went abroad, not only to continue their work but Received 11 January 2007; accepted 11 January 2007 Address correspondence to: Jose Roberto Sotelo, President SBBM, Head of the Department of Proteins & Nucleic Acids, Instituto de Investigaciones Biologicas Clemente Estable, Av. Italia 3318, C.P.11600, Montevideo, Uruguay. E-mail: sotelo@iibce.edu.uy IUBMBLife, 59(4 – 5): 219 – 220, April –May 2007