Luis Federico Leloir

Luis Federico Leloir (6 September 1906 – 2 December 1987) was an Argentine physician and biochemist awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He earned the prize for uncovering the metabolic pathways the body uses to synthesize carbohydrates and convert them into energy. Though born in France, Leloir was mostly educated at the University of Buenos Aires and led the private research institute Fundación Instituto Campomar until his death. His work on sugar nucleotides, carbohydrate metabolism, and renal hypertension drew global attention and advanced the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of the congenital disorder galactosemia. He is interred at La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Leloir’s parents, Federico Augusto Rufino and Hortencia Aguirre de Leloir, traveled from Buenos Aires to Paris in mid-1906 to treat Federico’s illness. He died in late August, and a week later Luis was born in an old house at 81 Víctor Hugo Road in Paris, near the Arc de Triomphe. Returning to Argentina in 1908, Leloir lived with his eight siblings on the family’s large property, El Tuyú, which his grandparents had bought after immigrating from Spain’s Basque Country. This 400-square-kilometer stretch of sandy coastline from San Clemente del Tuyú to Mar de Ajó later became a popular tourist spot.

As a child, Leloir was especially interested in observing natural phenomena, and his schoolwork and reading highlighted links between natural sciences and biology. He attended Escuela General San Martín for primary school, Colegio Lacordaire for secondary school, and spent a few months at Beaumont College in England. His grades were unremarkable, and his first attempt at college ended quickly when he abandoned architectural studies he had begun in Paris.

In the 1920s, Leloir invented salsa golf. At lunch with friends at the Ocean Club in Mar del Plata, he was served prawns with the usual sauce and mixed ketchup and mayonnaise to add flavor. Later, when his laboratories faced financial struggles, he joked that if he had patented the sauce, they would have had much more research funding.

After returning to Argentina again, Leloir became a citizen and joined the University of Buenos Aires’s Department of Medicine to pursue a doctorate. He struggled at first, needing four tries to pass his anatomy exam. He earned his diploma in 1932 and began a residency at Hospital de Clínicas and an internship at Ramos Mejía hospital. After conflicts with colleagues and complications in his patient treatment methods, he turned to laboratory research, noting that at the time little could be done for patients since antibiotics, psychoactive drugs, and other new therapies were unknown.

In 1933, Leloir met Bernardo Houssay, who directed him to study the suprarenal glands and carbohydrate metabolism for his doctoral thesis. Houssay was friends with Carlos Bonorino Udaondo, brother-in-law of Leloir’s cousin Victoria Ocampo. Following Udaondo’s recommendation, Leloir began working with Houssay, who would win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. They developed a close collaboration that lasted until Houssay’s death in 1971; in his Nobel lecture, Leloir said his entire research career was shaped by Houssay.

After just two years, the University of Buenos Aires’s medical department recognized Leloir’s doctoral thesis as the best. Feeling he lacked knowledge in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology, he continued attending classes part-time. In 1936, he went to England for advanced studies at the University of Cambridge under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, a Nobel laureate for his work on vitamins. At Cambridge’s Biochemical Laboratory, Leloir researched enzymes, particularly how cyanide and pyrophosphate affect succinic dehydrogenase, and began specializing in carbohydrate metabolism.

Leloir returned to Buenos Aires in 1937. In 1943, he married Amelia Zuberbuhler (1920–2013); they later had a daughter, also named Amelia. His return came during turmoil: Houssay had been expelled from the university for signing a petition against the Nazi regime and the military government of Pedro Pablo Ramírez. Leloir fled to the United States, becoming an associate professor in pharmacology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, working with Carl and Gerty Cori, and later a research assistant with David E. Green at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Leloir credited Green with inspiring him to start his own research in Argentina.