Jorge Allende

Jorge Eduardo Allende is a Professor at the University of Chile. He has contributed to the understanding of how transfer RNA is generated,^[1] and the regulation of maturation of amphibian eggs. He has been a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences since 2001.^[2]

He was born in Cartago, Costa Rica, son of Octavio Allende Echeverría (Chilean) and Amparo Rivera Ortiz (Costa Rican) on November 11, 1934.

Between 1947 and 1949, he studied in the Liceo Aleman of Santiago. In 1949 he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, where his father had been appointed Chilean Consul. He studied and graduated from Jesuit High School and subsequently studied in the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La. In this University he obtained a degree of Bachelor of Sciences in Chemistry in 1957. He carried out doctoral studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1961 under the tutorship of Prof. F.M. Richards.

On September 16, 1961, he married Catherine Connelly in Holyoke, Massachusetts and with her, he raised a family of four children: Miguel Luis, Juan Ignacio, Jorge Eduardo and Maria Amparo and 10 grand children.

In 1961 he entered as an academic in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, where he has stayed to the present time.

His scientific interests have evolved with time from the initial studies on mechanisms of protein biosynthesis, the genetic code, the effects of progesterone on the meiotic maturation of oocytes, the metabolism of cAMP and in the last decade on protein kinases, enzymes that phosphorylate other proteins.

His undergraduate teaching was concentrated n the chapters of Molecular Biology, Genetic Engineering, the Human Genome and the Oncogenes.

At the postgraduate level he has tutored 24 Doctoral thesis and several Master's thesis. He has had post-docs from Italy, Belgium, USA, Argentina, Costa Rica and Chile.

He was the first director of the Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas (ICBM) of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, between the years 1996-2002.

He has dedicated much effort in the organization of activities leading to the scientific integration of Latin America especially through the organization of a series of Training Courses on Techniques of Molecular Biology in a 20 years period (1968–1988) and the generation of the Latin American Network of Biological Sciences (RELAB).

He has also been involved in the organization of a number of studies and events about the development of science in Chile through his involvement in the Chilean Academy of Sciences.

In recent years, he has contributed in the generation of the Project of Inquiry Based Science Education in Chile which in the year 2006 benefited more than 30.000 children in 94 schools in 6 cities of the country. He is coordinator of the global program on science education of the Inter Academy Panel and at the hemispheric level by the Inter American Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS).

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