In memoriam: Manuel Espinosa Padrón (1942-2024)

Manuel Espinosa Padrón (Manolo for everybody) died on October 21, 2024. He was born in Los Realejos (Tenerife island) and studied Biological Sciences at the Complutense University (Madrid). He developed his PhD work entitled “Variability of chromogenesis in Pseudomonas species” from 1966 to 1969 at the Jaime Ferrán Institute under Prof. Antonio Portolés' supervision, a well-known microbiologist, who introduced Manolo in his scientific career.

The CIB has always been Manolo´s home. Thus, he initiated his research in an institute precursor of the future Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB,) and he continued working at this center every day for approximately 60 years, as a student, scientific collaborator, scientific researcher, professor, CIB´s director (1992-1993) and scientific ad honorem until his dead. After obtaining a permanent position he stayed abroad: in Prof. Gerard Venema´s laboratory at the Institute of Genetics, Groningen University, The Netherlands (1974); Dr. Miroslawa Piechowska´s laboratory at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Warsaw, Poland (1978) and in Dr. Sanford Lacks´s laboratory, at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY, USA (1980-1981).

Thus, after his return from the USA, he started his research group at the CIB and began his journey through genetic engineering. On the way back to Spain, his luggage included the pioneer electrophoresis equipment developed at the BNL, and later on used by manufacturing companies. Also, he carried the plasmid vectors based on the T7 transcriptional promoters, and the associated protein overexpression system, developed by Profs. William Studier and John Dunn at BNL.

Afterwards and during the rest of his career, he trained many pre- and postdoctoral researchers as molecular biologists and he made fundamental contributions in the fields of genetic transfer in bacteria, plasmid replication by the rolling circle mechanism, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, regulation of gene expression in bacteria and the mechanism of the toxin-antitoxin bacterial systems. Proof of his recognition at the world level was his nomination as a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1996.

I want to point out that Manolo, besides being an excellent scientist, was a humanist and friend of all the members of CIB, considered by him his comrades.

He was an exceptional man who always tried to train, help, and show enthusiasm to everybody he met. Moreover, he never wanted to consciously hurt anybody.

To finish, I want to state that, in my opinion, his students, including myself, have tried and will try in the future to continue his legacy of rigor and professional ethics, accompanied by camaraderie and humanism throughout Spain, Europe, America, and Asia.

Dear Manolo, rest in peace, and from the CIB all our love to your wife and scientific partner Alicia Bravo, to your soon, the researcher Manuel Espinosa Urgel, and the rest of your family.

Paloma López
 

Additional tribute papers to Manuel Espinosa:

Journal Microbial Biotechnology : link.