Professor Esteban Santiago, Full Professor of Biochemistry of the University, passed away.

Professor Esteban Santiago Calvo, Full Professor of Biochemistry of the University of Navarra, has died at the age of 89. degree program Born in Almendralejo (Badajoz), he studied medicine at the Universities of Seville and Madrid, where he completed his licentiate degree in 1954. His first steps in the research were taken at the high school of Metabolism and Nutrition of the committee Superior Institute of Scientific Research (CSIC) in 1955.

A year later he attended a course in enzymology by Professor Alberto Sols, and then went to programs of study of Biochemistry in New York, Chicago and Wisconsin. In 1961 he obtained the doctorate in this discipline from the University of Wisconsin and remained there as researcher until 1962, when he joined the University of Navarra as professor of Biochemistry .

After a brief hiatus at the University of Murcia, he obtained the Chair by the University of Oviedo in 1970 to return later to Pamplona, where Professor Santiago developed an extensive task professor and research both in the department of Biochemistry as in the Clínica Universidad de Navarra.

Secundino Fernández, current Dean of the School of Medicine, keeps a vivid memory of Don Esteban Santiago, as his students knew him: "He was a Professor who impressed us by his vast knowledge, not only of the Biochemistry and Chemistry Organic, but of all Medicine, by his facility to communicate and transmit his knowledge, by his submission to the research and for being, at that time, even learning Russian. Don Esteban was extremely generous and cultured, elegant even in the most complex explanations. Today he would still amaze us with his innovative way of teaching his teaching. In some classes he would ask for volunteer students to explain topic (previously prepared) to the rest of the classmates, while he played the role of moderator. I will never thank him enough".

Dr. Fernandez also recalls how he encouraged and pushed his students to achieve deep learning and to see research as an exciting task. He spoke to them "with real gratitude and passion" about his teachers, with whom he worked in the United States and who were the greats of Biochemistry at the time.

Passionate about university life

"I have always thought that those of us who dedicate ourselves to university work are privileged," said Professor Santiago in 1995 during a tribute for his 25 years of Chair. "Few professions offer in such a direct way as ours that possibility of joy in the search for truth and feeling excited when opening the veil that often hides it. There is also the joy of transmitting knowledge, especially when one discovers that one's own words provoke in those who listen to them a desire to know".

Thus, throughout his extensive degree program, Dr. Esteban Santiago directed numerous doctoral thesis and several of his disciples have occupied Chairs of Biochemistry in several universities. In addition, his extensive research activity has been published in several specialized publications.

He was a pioneer in his discipline, maintaining contact with research centers in other leading countries in research Biochemistry , which he described as the science to which "nothing living is alien". In 2003 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise in recognition of his career.