Jesus Perez-Gil, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Dean of Biology at Complutense University of Madrid, considers himself lucky, having spent his whole scientific life focused on one primary scientific problem, the pulmonary surfactant system. In this way and many others, he is following in the footsteps of prominent biophysicists he admires, who “have dedicated their lives to working hard studying interesting biological problems while also enjoying life, maintaining a humble spirit, and helping those around them as much as possible.”
Jesus Perez-Gil realized the beauty of mathematics, physics, and biology in his late high school years, thanks to some generous and engaging teachers. “I will be always indebted to Jose Gangoso, my professor of Mathematics and Physics, who I will never forget because he opened my eyes and brain to the wonder of scientific thinking,” he remembers. At the time, he was not considering a career in science, but was excited by how it explained the world around him. “I had always told my parents I wanted to become an architect!” he says. “I can only imagine their faces and feelings when I told them — during my last year of high school prior to entering university — that I changed my mind and wanted to study biology, which at that time and place —end of the 1970s, Spain — was very far from the recognized frontier that it is today.”
Following high school, Perez-Gil entered Complutense University of Madrid, where he did study biology. He seriously considered specializing in botany, but became captivated by “the deep knowledge of the intrinsic structure and mechanisms of living matter that can be provided by study at the molecular level,” he says, and decided to pursue a PhD in biochemistry instead. He worked in the lab of Roberto Arche, an enzymologist who introduced him to the beauty of structure-function relationships in proteins and imparted to him a deep understanding of the chemical mechanisms of enzyme reactions. “Working in the biochemistry department, while studying the catalytic mechanism of enzymes ensuring the supply of saturated phospholipids to pulmonary surfactant, I realized that physics and physical chemistry are required to understand the nature of certain physiological problems, and I decided to go learn more physics and become a biophysicist,” he explains. “Biology to biochemistry to biophysics was my pathway to scientific happiness.”
He started looking for postdoctoral positions in biophysics and physical chemistry of lipid membranes, which he felt would help him delve deeper into the study of interesting and relevant biological and biomedical problems than appointments in biology or biochemistry could. He came across his eventual postdoctoral position entirely by chance, in the form of an advertisement included with copies of articles mailed to his lab — “the only way we had at that time to get updated literature in a modest country like Spain, where we had no good scientific libraries with journal subscriptions,” he shares. The advertisement was for positions in the lab of Kevin Keough at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada.
“Somebody helped me to write a letter to Prof. Keough and after a whole bunch of applications for fellowships, I started a postdoc stay at Memorial. It was not an easy transition, as I was already married at that time (to a scientist who also needed to find her own postdoctoral way) and had two very young kids,” he says. “Imagine the whole family, including a two-year-old girl and a five-month-old baby, landing in Newfoundland in January. I will always be indebted to my wife and family for their sacrifice in following me to the place where I could develop the most important step of my career.” There, Perez-Gil studied the intrinsic problem of lung surfactant and the biophysics of breathing, and benefitted from the experience of his adviser. “I consider Kevin to be my true mentor not only in the world of membranes and surfactant biophysics,” he says, “but in the art of moving and collaborating in science.”
After a couple of years at Memorial, he took an opportunity to learn more about membrane biophysics by working at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany. He worked in the lab of Derek Marsh, an expert in the application of electron spin resonance tools to the study of membranes and membrane proteins.
“When I attended my first BPS meetings, I decided that biophysics was certainly the field I wanted to belong to,” he shares. “Every year I was coming back home [with] plenty of new ideas and potential experiments, contacts of people who I could collaborate with, and a strong motivation to produce nice results that I could bring the following year. Compared to the environment of other meetings, especially in Europe, I found the BPS meetings much more committed with giving opportunities to young people to attend and exchange ideas and projects. It is also particularly unique in promoting the encounter of young and experienced scientists, which in the end inspires and consolidates vocations.”
Perez-Gil returned to Madrid and Complutense University, where he is now full professor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department, as well as dean of the biology faculty. In spite of the administrative demands on his time, he tries to keep his lab running smoothly and specializing in many aspects of pulmonary surfactant biology and lung homeostasis. “Thus, we run about 50 percent of our research still exploring the fundamental molecular and biophysical mechanisms of pulmonary surfactant, in various different models we have developed in the laboratory; 30 percent of our time is used on collaborative work with groups interested in clinical research, or in animal models of respiratory pathologies; and finally, 20 percent of our time is devoted to projects related with respiratory drug delivery, with special interest in the application of nanotechnology to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic tools,” he explains.
In addition to the challenges associated with administrative responsibilities, Perez-Gil has faced the difficulties that naturally come along with the advancement of scientific research. “A main challenge for an old biologist like me was the introduction of molecular biology tools into my lab and research. It was clear that we needed to be able to clone and overexpress proteins and their variants to have a full understanding of their structure-function relationships, something that I had not had the opportunity to learn during my graduate and postdoc education,” he says. “In our case, I was extremely lucky that we could incorporate an extraordinary postdoc in our laboratory, Jose Maria Oviedo, who, with an exquisite generosity, introduced all the molecular biology tools in the lab, including setting the methods and infrastructure, training our students and researchers, and ultimately educating our minds to have molecular biology as one more approach to combine with biophysics. When Jose Maria finished with us, he entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest! I then understood why a postdoc like him did not mind investing so much time with so little personal reward (considering the logical academic urgencies one could expect in a postdoc in the middle of his/her career). We will be always indebted to Jose Maria’s generosity.”
While the intimate moments of discovery a researcher experiences are personally satisfying for Perez-Gil, he says, “the satisfaction of opening the eyes and minds of the youngest scientists to the beauty of research is even better.”
In the short term, Perez-Gil hopes to connect the biophysical work from his lab with true novel diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities in respiratory medicine. But taking a longer view, he says, “To be honest, perhaps the best contribution to biophysics I can aspire to contribute is the initiation into science and biophysics of young people with the potential to become some of the greatest biophysicists of the future.”
As a model for this vision, he holds up Portuguese biophysicist Manuel Prieto. “The huge contribution of Manuel to biophysics is difficult to summarize but he still enjoys more than ever travelling with his students to attend conferences while also enjoying together culture and nature of the visiting places. Going with Manuel anywhere guarantees that you will believe again in humankind.”