World Health Day: What are the most important Nobel Prizes in the history of Argentine medicine?

April 7, 2019

In the country, we are not only known by typical phrases or customs that differentiate us from the rest of the world. We are also famous for the great doctors who have marked history.

As part of World Health Day, commemorated every April 7 since 1948, when the first World Health Assembly proposed to set this date to commemorate the founding of the World Health Organization, we remember the doctors who won a Nobel Prize in their professional careers dedicated to their research in medicine.

In total, five Argentines have already won this distinction since its creation in 1901. Two of them belong to the field of medicine and, thanks to their discoveries, they remain today the fundamental pillars of the development of medicine. medicine. .

Why is April 7 celebrated as World Health Day?

Nobel Prize for Medicine the most important

Bernardo Alberto Houssay He received the award in 1947 for his scientific discoveries on the role played by pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of sugar in the blood, that is, by the metabolism of carbohydrates.

He is the first Argentinian and Latin American to have been rewarded in the field of science. Thanks to his work, physiology has gained a very important impetus in the country.

Luis Federico Leloir He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970 for his research on sugar nucleotides and the role they play, like Dr. Houssay, in carbohydrate manufacturing.

Her academic contribution has led to a better understanding of conbad galactosemia (which causes it to accumulate in the body, producing lesions in the liver and central nervous system).

Cesar MilsteinArgentinian biologist of British nationality, recognized in 1984 for his work on monoclonal antibodies.

Milstein has studied immunoglobulins (proteins produced by the immune system to attack antigens such as bacteria, viruses and allergens) and has also anticipated understanding of the process by which blood produces antibodies.