Miguel Beato is one of the most internationally acclaimed researchers on the mechanisms of hormonal action, gene expression and breast and endometrial cancer. He studied Medicine at the Universitat de Barcelona in 1962. At a time where it was unusual to study abroad being so young, he left to Germany to do his PhD. He stayed there until he came back to his country of origin nearly 10 years ago. A painting and photography lover, this self-taught scientist has helped in the creation of three research institutes: one in Germany, one in Seville, and the last one, of which he is currently director, within the context of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) in Barcelona: the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG).
Your father was a gynaecologist and you followed his steps…
Yes, I studied gynaecology and obstetrics, and I even worked in the Clinic he had in Burgos, participating in about 500 labours! It was fun, and I would have loved to be a male midwife. It was an adventure, to get to the isolated villages sometimes I even had to go by horse…
Why did you then decide to quit?
I liked to dedicate time to my patients, but it was impossible, I had a minute and a half for each of them! So, I decided to go into a laboratory to do pathological anatomy, first in Madrid and then in Germany, where I did my PhD.
Why Germany?
Because of family tradition. My father did his PhD there, met my mum there…. Aside from a short stay at Columbia, New York, I have lived there for nearly 30 years, got married there,…
But you came back to Spain.
After the German reunification there was an economic crisis and I started looking for a place with more light…
Such as Barcelona…
Well, I started with other initiatives, but the most interesting was when Jordi Camí invited me to help them build the human biology faculty at the UPF. I thought it was a fantastic thing they were doing: a university that recruited internationally by the objective selection of good candidates. After this, Mas-Colell, who was the University Councilor, came with the idea of creating a basic research centre with a big critical mass next to the university. That was precisely what I wanted, so we created the CRG, which has since been an unforeseen chain of successes. The best moment of my career was coming back to Barcelona.
What do you think of research in Spain and Catalonia?
Catalonia is better positioned than Madrid, but all of Spain is in a quite bad shape, because most of the science is done by civil servants. But I believe that we are at an expansion point that can help to put us where we belong to. We must stop consuming from others and start producing knowledge ourselves. The culture of the 21st century is science and scientists have the obligation of doing science communication to the public so society can advance along with science.
“Scientists have the obligation of doing science communication to the public so society can advance along with science”
What is the best thing about science?
The most important thing that scientists can offer to society is their respect for the truth, the passion of the scientist who, when realising that s/he was wrong, is glad and says “now I am wiser”. The scientific method is what is important in science, that people learn to have an sceptical attitude.
