Biophysical Society Bulletin | March 2020

Biophysicist in Profile

Jesus Perez-Gil Areas of Research Pulmonary surfactant system

Institution Complutense University of Madrid

At-a-Glance

Jesus Perez-Gil , Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Dean of Biology at Com- plutense 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

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 Univer- sity of Madrid, where he did study biology. He seriously con- sidered 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 enzymolo- gist who introduced him to the beauty of structure-function relationships in proteins and imparted to him a deep under- standing of the chemical mechanisms of enzyme reactions. “Working in the biochemistry department, while studying the catalytic mechanism of enzymes ensuring the supply of sat- urated 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 appoint- ments 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 Professor Keough and after a whole bunch of applications for fellowships, I started a postdoc stay at Memorial. It was not an easy transi- tion, 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, includ- ing 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 sur- factant 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 collaborat- ing in science.” Perez-Gil living a true Canadian experience during his postdoc, a real challenge for a Spanish biophysicist.

March 2020

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