2023-06-13 01:29:00
“Simplicity is not simplicity.”
Only three Argentine scientists obtained the Nobel Prize. Federico Leloir, PhD in Chemistry, obviously obtained it in Chemistry. Dr. Bernardo Houssay -physician- obtained the Medicine degree.
But the third scientist, who was not a doctor, but a Doctor of Chemistry, also obtained the Nobel Prize in medicine.
I am referring to Dr. César Milstein, who was born in Bahía Blanca in 1927. He was 16 years old and was in his fourth year of High School in his hometown.
He himself recounted, -he was really modest- an anecdote with the Chemistry teacher.
In a practical work in the school laboratory, when he was still the student César Milstein, he respectfully made a suggestion to the professor, related to an experiment they were carrying out.
-“ I discover that I have repeated a mistake for 20 years. Congratulations. I predict that you are going to be a Chemistry Professor”.
But again he was wrong. Because that student would be much more -with the passing of time- because he would get nothing less than a Nobel Prize.
César Milstein already received a PhD in Chemistry, finished his career at the age of 29-. He worked as a researcher at the Malbrán Institute in Buenos Aires, until he was 35 years old.
Later, the layoffs of colleagues and the lack of budget, plus a scholarship that he obtained to study at the University of Cambridge, in England, made him move to that country, where he ended up settling permanently.
I will explain, very rudimentarily, by the way, the discovery that earned him his award.
He managed to identify certain antibodies that “fight” if the expression fits, against viruses and bacteria that enter our body and make us sick.
I would say and I apologize for such a simple summary, which enriched the possibility of immunizing ourselves against certain infections.
-“It’s like a battle-“, he said. “Faced with the soldiers of evil that attack us, introducing attenuated malignant viruses into our organisms, we will strengthen the forces of good that defend us and which are called antibodies.”
And a final anecdote that fully defines his humility and balance.
On October 8, 1984, Dr. Milstein celebrated his 57th birthday in London, with several people of his friendship. In that circumstance, a telegram arrived at his home notifying him that he had obtained, through his research, nothing less than the Nobel Prize in Medicine for that year, 1984.
His friends and family hugged him excitedly. And they asked him to say a few words.
– “I am happy, because I will be able to change my old car.” And he added with the serenity of a philosopher: “Just before the telegram arrived we were talking about the death of the young bullfighter, Paquirri”, who was the pseudonym of the famous Spanish bullfighter, Francisco Rivera, whose father he knew, since he was a eminent Spanish researcher. “I think it is disrespectful to his memory, interrupting only for an award – it was nothing less than the Nobel Prize! -, interrupting the modest tribute to remember him,” said Milstein.
The 37-year-old bullfighter had died, injured by a bull during a bullfight, that same day.
And this brief anecdote, which I think explains itself, shows us the depth of feelings of the Argentine researcher.
Dr. César Milstein would pass away at the age of 75, on March 24, 2002.
His talent, and an unyielding will that forced him to work 13 or 14 hours. daily in his laboratory, made me create this aphorism:
“To float, it is necessary to submerge.”
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