IUBMB Life, 63(10): 784–788, October 2011
Feature
How Mexican Biochemistry Developed and Present Challenges
Antonio Peña
Instituto de Fisiologı´a Celular, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Me´xico, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico, D.F.
I have been invited and accepted to write not exactly the history but
my recollections about what may be called the starting of Mexican
Biochemistry, which was formally initiated in the late 1950s of last
Century. In any case, history is written not always from established
and clear facts, but from the memories of some of the participating
actors. Perhaps, someone more professional should take the task of
writing on more solid grounds, not only about Biochemistry but
also about Mexican Science in general during the last 50 years.
I was lucky enough to be part and witness of the starting, as
student of Dr. José Laguna, one of the main protagonists of that
quest, with whom one day I decided to explore the possibility
of working on my thesis to get my M.D. degree. Back in 1958,
one of my colleagues and dearest friend in the Medical School,
Armando Gómez-Puyou, recommended me to his professor,
who after a short but impressive interview decided to accept me
under some kind of strict probation, previously warning me that
the most important fact to be considered was the intensity and
enthusiasm of each and every one of the young students. It was
a rule that besides some acceptable capacity, those failing to
show these characteristics were asked to abandon the Depart-
ment. This was the Department of Biochemistry of the Medical
School at the National University of Mexico (UNAM).
If we want to believe in the Genesis, when God created our
World, it was all chaos, but his work implied organizing exist-
ing materials. He was omnipotent and omniscient, but above
all, in a more realistic vision, all happened, not in days but in
billions of years. The pioneers of Biochemistry in Mexico
started from what was not even chaos; there may not be chaos
where there is only the absence of everything. Although not yet
enough, it is amazing for our Country what came after that.
There were two main components of those beginnings, an
illusion, but accompanied by a great decision to make it real.
Illusion was that plans were based on nothing but almost empty
places, with practically no equipment, only may be colorime-
ters, rudimentary water baths, glassware, and, in general, the
most indispensable materials and reagents to run simple experi-
ments. The first biochemists were just a few, mostly scattered
Received 25 April 2011; accepted 27 April 2011
Address correspondence to: Antonio Peña, Emeritus Researcher,
Instituto de Fisiologı́a Celular, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico, D.F. Mexico.
E-mail: apd@ifc.unam.mx
ISSN 1521-6543 print/ISSN 1521-6551 online
DOI: 10.1002/iub.503
in different places of Mexico City, mainly in the Polytechnic
Institute, the National Institutes of Nutrition and Cardiology, the
Medical School, the Institutes of Chemistry and Biology at the
University, and the Children’s Hospital. Most of those initial
researchers had either obtained their Ph.D. in Biochemistry or
were M.D.s who had spent some time abroad. One group in
particular had been attracted by Dr. Phillip Cohen at the Bio-
chemistry Department in the University of Wisconsin at Madi-
son, in the United States; these were: Guillermo Soberón,
Edmundo Calva, Jesús Kumate, Graciela Delhumeau, Carlos
Gitler, and Mario Garcı́a. While in there, they made plans for
their return to Mexico, but nothing really concrete. They came
back and incorporated to the mentioned institutions, but most of
them scattered and rather isolated in the very few places where,
with great limitations, they could carry out their work.
There were, of course, antecessors who, without a defined
direction, opened the way to form those biochemists. One of
them was Salvador Zubirán, founder and director of the National
Institute of Nutrition, who was responsible for the enrollment of
at least Laguna, Pardo, and Soberón. There were also promoters,
like Ignacio Chávez, who created a Department of Biochemistry
in the National Cardiology Institute. Later on, Arturo Rose-
nblueth convinced the Ministry of Education to create a modern
research center in the Polytechnic Institute, but not until 1961;
this was the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CIN-
VESTAV) in the Polytechnic Institute. In there, an important
Biochemistry Department was conceived and developed. There
was also a physiologist, Efrén del Pozo, who while being Secre-
tary General at UNAM helped and supported the illusions of the
pioneers and contributed to the development of Biochemistry.
Special mention deserves Dr. Philip Cohen, in those times,
Head of the Department of Biochemistry of the University of
Wisconsin, in Madison, to where he attracted quite a number of
Mexican young people. Most important is perhaps that this
man, with an enormous human quality, was able to communi-
cate to those young students not only his knowledge and experi-
ence but also enthusiasm and, it is at least my belief, the sense
of solidarity, which is frequently lacking among scientists, par-
ticularly in developing countries.
At this time, i.e., the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, the
main task was the attraction of young students to be trained as
the most reasonable candidates to fulfill their then nothing but
fantasy. However, not many years passed, when the number of stu-
 HOW MEXICAN BIOCHEMISTRY DEVELOPED AND PRESENT CHALLENGES
dents was rather numerous in such a way that the next step to con-
sider was the establishment of a graduate program, both for the new
young students and some of the established researchers who did not
have it, and to offer the possibility of getting a doctoral degree.
The first important action was that two of them, Guillermo
Soberón and José Laguna led the way; they were the ones who
actually complemented the illusion with the decision and started
by organizing small meetings among themselves to communi-
cate one another their small advances and to define future direc-
tions to their research. This created a small nucleus of incipient
biochemists, but at the same time, they started promoting the
incorporation of bright young students from different careers,
most from the Medical and some from the Biology Schools, to
assure the growth of the groups.
At the same time, a general strategy was defined; besides the
meetings, something rather advanced for that time was the deci-
sion to organize a Society, the Mexican Biochemical Society,
which was created in July 1957. The value of this decision can
be estimated by considering that it became a reality before the
creation of the Mexican Physiological Society from a group al-
ready much larger and with a much longer tradition and number
of scientists. Even the Mexican Academy of Sciences was cre-
ated next year. Actually, it is very possible that the creation of
the latter two societies was inspired by the actions of the Mexi-
can biochemists. It is to be mentioned that not all of the found-
ers of the Society were actually biochemists.
Besides organizing and taking actions toward growth, one of
the main and essential problems was defining some way the qual-
ity of the work and results of each group. In those days, most of
the older Mexican societies had their own journals, with very
limited means, editorial boards, and standards in the reviewing
and quality of the papers published. The Mexican biochemists,
took a transcendental decision, they chose not to follow that
example, but that of performing, even with the limited means
they had, research that should be submitted to the more demand-
ing criticism of the international journals of the area. This would
be the only way to assure the quality of the work.
The founders, practically each alone, were: Barbarı́n Arre-
guı́n, in the Institute of Chemistry, at UNAM; Edmundo Calva
and Mario Garcı́a, in the National Cardiology Institute; Guil-
lermo Carvajal, in the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas,
at the Polytechnic Institute; Joaquı́n Cravioto, Jesús Kumate
and Silvestre Frenk, in the Children’s Hospital of Mexico; Guil-
lermo Massieu was at the Biology Institue, also at UNAM.
Particular mention deserves Guillermo Soberón, who after
getting his Ph.D. in Biochemistry incorporated to the Hospital
of Nutrition Diseases and soon recruited his first two students,
Estela Sánchez and Jaime Mora. He was the first President of
the Biochemical Society, and, as already mentioned, one of the
two main leaders in the consolidation of Biochemistry in Mex-
ico. Later on, he was appointed Director of the Biomedical
Institute at UNAM, where he promoted the formation of an
even larger research group, and later on, after his designation as
Rector of the University, promoted the creation of three other
785
Research centers, one around Nitrogen Fixation, another in Bio-
technology, and ours on Cellular Physiology.
One of the main groups formed was that of José Laguna, an
M.D., who had made a series of visits to foreign laboratories,
where he acquired not a Ph.D. but an excellent preparation in
Biochemistry. He, after his return to Mexico, was soon appointed
Head of the Department of Biochemistry in the Medical School
of UNAM. Right after this, he managed to hire Raúl Ondarza, a
Biologist who several years later obtained his Ph.D. Jesús Guz-
mán, with a Master’s degree in Biochemistry, who also later
obtained his Ph.D. as one of the first products of a Graduate Pro-
gram in Biochemistry at the Polytechnic Institute. Carlos Del Rı́o
was also incorporated to the Department, having obtained a
Ph.D. in Rutgers. He would later propose the logo of the Society.
José Laguna, as already told, after a series of visits to for-
eign laboratories and returning to Mexico, was an impressive
personality. He started lecturing in the Medical School in 1955
while working in a Division of the Health Ministry and was
invited next year to head the Department of Biochemistry of the
Medical School at UNAM. Besides sharing with Soberón the
illusion of developing his discipline, he took the responsibility
of modernizing, together with Guzmán, the teaching of Bio-
chemistry in the Medical School at UNAM, recruiting bright
young students to help as assistants in the teaching laboratories
and in the initial research projects, with the longer term idea of
incorporating them as lecturers in Biochemistry. Even, realizing
that there was not an adequate textbook of Biochemistry, he
took the task of writing one, which became the most popular
one used in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Efraı́n Pardo, one of the other founders, was hired as Head
of the Pharmacology Department of the Medical School; he
used to say ‘‘I am not a Biochemist but rather a friend of many
of them, who honored me with the invitation to participate in
the creation of the Mexican Biochemical Society.’’
Even though all of them participated in the creation of the
Mexican Biochemical Society, beyond any doubt, those leading
its creation were Laguna and Soberón, who organized, pro-
moted, invited, and if necessary, forced their students and col-
leagues to attend monthly meetings. Next is the photograph
taken the same day of the foundation of the Society.
786
The following picture shows most of the founders 25 years
later; Laguna and Massieu were not present, but all look defi-
nitely happier, smiling alter having survived and moved along
the first quarter of a Century.
From meetings and talks, we have heard about their experi-
ences and achievements, but their initial more concrete goals
appear somewhat confusing. The task was enormous from
improving teaching of Biochemistry to starting their own proj-
ects in such a way that results would come out as publications
in serious international journals. They had to grow and multi-
ply; they had the students, so they managed to start a graduate
program. Within an admirable spirit of solidarity and collabora-
tion, they looked for the best place for that program, and the
first one was established in the School of Biological Sciences of
the Polytechnic Institute. That program mostly allowed the
attainment of a Ph.D. for the already established researchers,
most of which were M.D.’s or only had a master’s degree.
In the meanwhile, at UNAM, the number of students kept
growing, and the Polytechnic Institute was quite far within the
City; this created the necessity to organize another graduate
program in Biochemistry in the former. They managed to gener-
ate it based on courses borrowed from other programs, mainly
the Ph.D. program in Chemistry. To complete the preparation
of the students, they organized a series of short intensive
courses, given by invited professors, mostly from the United
States, as well as visits of few months to laboratories also in
that country. The program was informal; nowadays, we would
call it ‘‘pirate,’’ because it did not have the approval from the
University Council, indispensable to be official and valid. How-
ever, from the beginning, allies were found in the Chemistry
School, who lent themselves to provide shelter to the program;
it was approved by the University Council in 1969, the aca-
demic situation of the students was formalized, and a significant
number of them almost immediately obtained their degrees.
The beginning was slow; from the 14 members of the Soci-
ety, in 1962, they reached the number of 33, the new ones were
PEÑA
Margarita Escobedo, Emiliano Cabrera, Ma. de la Luz Suárez,
Luz Marı́a del Castillo, Manuel Servı́n Massieu, Mauricio Rus-
sek, Fernando Bastarrachea, Félix Córdoba, José Ramı́rez de
Arellano, Carlos Gual, Graciela Delhumeau, and Jesús Torres.
Also Carlos Gitler, who was not back yet, David Berliner, who
never came back, Salomón Bartnicki, who did not come back
until 2001, and la Dr. Miriam Nurnberg de Salegui, who appa-
rently was never even in Mexico. Special mention should be
made of Jaime Mora, student of Soberón, the first student of
one of the founders. Still in 5 more years, another 22 are incor-
porated, most of them students of the founders.
Starting in 1962, given the reduced membership, joint con-
gresses were organized with the Physiological Society. This
continued to be so until 1972, when the current President of our
Society, Fernando Bastarrachea, and myself, as his Secretary,
organized the first independent congress of the Mexican Bio-
chemical Society in Guanajuato, Mexico. It is to be mentioned
that a fortunate decision was adopted to have our congress ev-
ery 2 years and not in a yearly basis as it had been accustomed
while associated with the physiologists.
Meetings were important; however, what was even more im-
portant was materializing our findings into formal publications.
These only started in 1960, first because of the commitment of
the founders to show our results not to other Mexicans but to
the international community, and second, because of the time it
took to form from nothing the students, getting adequate means,
equipment, and funds. However, slowly but steadily, the number
of publications kept increasing; perhaps, it was not until the be-
ginning of the 1970s when a continuous Mexican academic pro-
duction in international journals was achieved.
Funding was a complicated matter; it was not easy to con-
vince anyone, starting with the officials of our own institutions
that it was necessary to invest in something that they hardly
understood; this was worse with our Government. Each group
tried to find its own ways; I can relate the situation in our Bio-
chemistry Department in the very early 1960s. We started work-
ing with Drs. Laguna and Guzmán in a project to define the
effects of different glucocorticoids, particularly the latest syn-
thetic ones, in the carbohydrate and protein metabolism, and
their effects on mineral metabolism in chick embryos, with
some interesting results that could be rounded and published.
Then, in some way Dr. Laguna established a connection with
the Rockefeller Foundation to apply for a research grant to
increase our perspectives by obtaining more and more modern
equipment and funds for materials and reagents. So, a delega-
tion of the Foundation visited our Department, heard about all
our projects; all of us students properly dressed were introduced
to them, and they appeared rather enthusiastic. However, the
most difficult question of the interview came out, related to
what had we published, and the answer was of course that
none. Nonetheless, the delegates of the Foundation practically
assured Dr. Laguna that some funding could be granted, under
the condition that some published material was presented. It
was so, that forced by those people we started rounding up our
 HOW MEXICAN BIOCHEMISTRY DEVELOPED AND PRESENT CHALLENGES
results, working all day from Monday through Sunday, and
between 1960 and 1962, we managed to publish four papers in
international journals. Then, only a few months later, we
received notice of the approval of a grant for 125,000.00 USD
and shortly after the funds. This allowed Dr. Laguna to buy
refrigerated centrifuges, an ultracentrifuge, three Zeiss spectro-
photometers, one with a fluorescence attachment, a registering
spectrophotometer, and several other minor items, such as
recorders, to which a home-built oxygen meter could be
attached, pH meters, etc. Even some money was left as a sacred
reserve for reagents, which was carefully administered by
Dr. Laguna himself.
Also the University started to provide more funding for our
projects. Then, it was not until 1970 that the Mexican Council
for Science and Technology was founded, and at the end of the
1970s a grant system was implemented. Gradually, we could
get more and more, but never adequate funding; actually, if we
look along these 60 years, we had only one 6-year-period (with
President Salinas) when funding appeared to be increasing, but
that was also ephemeral.
This is how Mexican Biochemistry started and developed. At
this moment (2011), our Society has close to 1000 members,
many in Mexico City and close by and not so many in different
states. Our last Congress brought together around 1,300 attend-
ants. Publications, practically all of them in international jour-
nals represent a significant part of the Mexican scientific pro-
duction.
Another fortunate situation, having a general congress every
2 years allowed one of our colleagues, Carlos Gómez-Lojero, to
make the proposal to organize, during the odd years, smaller
and more specialized meetings that he also proposed would be
called ‘‘branches.’’ He, attended by myself, started organizing
the first one, i.e., on Bioenergetics and Biomembranes, which
has been meeting every 2 years since 1979. The idea appealed
other groups, and now the Society has six branches.
Also slowly, and in many cases, promoted by Guillermo
Soberón, more and more places where Biochemistry is culti-
vated have been created. Around the Country, there are around
20 places where Biochemistry is cultivated. The teaching of our
discipline has also greatly improved, both at the undergraduate
and postgraduate level. Even other research areas have benefited
from the example of biochemists, mostly in the biological area.
GENERAL SITUATION AND SUPPORT
THROUGH THE YEARS
As already said, from 1960 to 1970, each group survived
through the meager support from their own institutions. It was
not until the early 1970s, when the National Council for Sci-
ence and Technology (CONACyT, for abbreviation of its name
in Spanish) started a modest grant system that allowed a some-
what more comfortable situation for scientific research. Grants
continued to slowly increase funding until the early 1980s,
when a serious economic crisis hit Mexico with the crash of the
787
oil prices. We had suffered a devaluation of the Mexican peso
in 1976 and then another one in March 1982, seriously affecting
also the salaries. In 1984, the Ministry of Education created the
National System for Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investi-
gadores), which since then provides for an additional salary at
different levels, depending on an evaluation of each one. This
period was so named the ‘‘lost decade’’ for science and many
other activities in our Country.
On top of this, one of the directors of CONACyT decided to
establish some sort of bet, using a significant part of the already
insufficient budget to support applied science above all. This
generated an additional shortage of funds to support basic
research. Since then, this has been a recurrent policy of our
governments, with the exception of the rule by President Sali-
nas, who concerted a loan from the World Bank, to reinforce
and develop the scientific infrastructure of Mexico.
Then, we suffered the damage of a strange phenomenon dur-
ing the rule of President Zedillo. As one of the ministers of Sal-
inas, he was in charge of negotiating the loan from the World
Bank, and all of us expected him to continue the existing policy
of support to Mexican science. However, during his period as
President of Mexico, the support to science started to decrease,
or was rather maintained, but without considering inflation and
the consequent price increases of all our requirements. At the
start of his administration, he made a terrible mistake that took
us to another devaluation of the peso, which took several years
to recover from. In this way, we had to suffer 6 years of limita-
tions. To this, we have to add the incapacity of the
new appointed Director of CONACyT. He also decided to
channel part of the budget to applied science in detriment of
basic science.
This is what happened under the rule of presidents originated
in the official political party (Partido Revolucionario Institucio-
nal or PRI), but then in the 2000 elections, Mexicans decided to
elect ‘‘for a change’’ Vicente Fox, from another party (Partido
Acción Nacional or PAN). There is a Mexican saying ‘‘where
there is bad, there is worse,’’ and so it was. He appointed as
Director of CONACyT an engineer coming from a private
industry, who again was more worried about applied science
and even supporting some foreign companies to develop ‘‘new
products.’’ This substituted in an important measure basic sci-
ence. Once, I dared to qualify him as an ‘‘ignorant farmer,’’
which gave way to an editorial in ‘‘Nature Medicine,’’ that in a
strange way not only defended him but also accused us scien-
tists of doing nothing about application of our knowledge,
among other things, to Medicine.
Finally, here we are finishing another 6 year period with the
last of our presidents, also from the PAN, who has shown noth-
ing but an almost absolute lack of interest, not only in develop-
ing and growing the scientific infrastructure of Mexico but also
even of adequately supporting it. Since long, the already scarce
budget has been atomized into a series of new programs, some
involving the support of projects with the joint funding of
CONACyT and almost every Government of each State of
788 PEÑA
Mexico. Another great idea was to establish what they call ‘‘Mac-
roprojects,’’ in which several groups associate to receive large
amounts of money, under the premise that results and advances
of several groups will be more significant than those of individual
ones. The most recent Program is one called ‘‘Thematic Net-
works’’ with a more or less similar idea. Part of the idea has been
already for several years to solve ‘‘National Problems,’’ never
clearly defined, never to my knowledge, even partially solved.
The position of many of us has been that they can do as
they wish, but all these modalities and experiments should be
performed ‘‘besides’’ and not ‘‘instead of’’ basic science, which
is what most researchers in most institutions perform. On the
other hand, applied science is difficult to conceive, given the
lack of interest and development of industries in Mexico.
Not many years ago, CONACyT hired the Carnegie Mellon
Foundation to analyze the general situation of science in
Mexico. One of the main conclusions of that study was that the
scientific infrastructure of Mexico was clearly insufficient.
However, the policy of the Mexican Government, difficult to
understand, has been in the last few years to cut the funding to
positions for new investigators, particularly by the larger and
stronger institutions of the Country. We already have a small
output of Ph.D.s from our graduate programs, but in top of that,
we have great difficulties to hire them; the logical question then
is ‘‘>What for?’’
However, although with vague previous antecedents, the
starting of the history of Biochemistry in Mexico can be traced
to the late 1950s. Many are its achievements; its growth
remarkable, but I, and most of us, wonder if that happened with
so many difficulties, what with adequate support might have
been achieved. The American Society for Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology has a Membership of 12,000 Biochemists,
for a population of 250 million people, only biochemists are
close to 50 per million. Mexico has only 1000, out of which
probably one fourth are inactive, for 110 million inhabitants
(close to 7 per million); that is clearly not enough.