Martinez-Arias Alfonso
Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Int J Dev Biol. 2009;53(8-10):1179-91. doi: 10.1387/ijdb.082811am.
At the beginning of the XXI Century, Spanish Biology lives a period of unprecedented growth and development. This situation owes much to the stability of the last few years and breaks a pattern in which Science was the activity of a few self-taught individuals working within an indifferent environment. The development of Genetics is a good example of these factors. A long isolated period dating back to the 1500s was broken at the beginning of the XX Century through the creation of a number of institutions and, in particular the Junta de Ampliacion de Estudios, which created a seed for scientific development and had a significant effect in the area of Genetics. However, the Spanish civil war destroyed this seed and forced a new beginning. Throughout the second half of the century, steady progress, largely driven by individuals formed abroad and returning to Spain with knowledge and methods, has been the basis for the establishment of a scientific ingrastructure from which Spain is making important contributions to modern biology. The person of Antonio Garcia-Bellido has emerged over the last 40 years as a reference for modern genetics and also as the root of an important, perhaps the only, real school in this area of work.
在二十一世纪初，西班牙生物学正经历着一个前所未有的增长和发展时期。这种情况很大程度上归功于过去几年的稳定，打破了科学曾是少数自学成才者在冷漠环境中开展的活动这一模式。遗传学的发展就是这些因素的一个很好例证。可追溯到16世纪的漫长孤立时期在二十世纪初被打破，当时创建了一些机构，特别是“教育扩展委员会”，它为科学发展播下了种子，并在遗传学领域产生了重大影响。然而，西班牙内战摧毁了这颗种子，迫使一切重新开始。在整个二十世纪下半叶，主要由在国外学成并带着知识和方法回国的个人推动的稳步发展，成为了建立科学基础设施的基础，西班牙正基于此对现代生物学做出重要贡献。在过去40年里，安东尼奥·加西亚 - 贝利多已成为现代遗传学的一个标杆人物，也是该领域一个重要的、或许是唯一真正学派的根源所在。
