Severo Ochoa was a world famous biochemist, and joint winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg. He lived from 24th September 1905 until 1st November 1993. In 1959 Ochoa was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the discovery of mechanisms in the biological synthesis of RNA and DNA. His contribution to deciphering the genetic code established him as a scientist at the cutting edge of molecular biology during the 1960s.
He left Spain during the civil war and then carried out research in Germany, UK and the USA. He eventually returned to Spain when he retired in 1985. The Spanish are very proud of Severo Ochoa. There is a research centre named after him in the South of Madrid ( Centro de BiologĂa Molecular Severo Ochoa), a hospital bears his name, and there is a Madrid Metro station named after him.