Severo Ochoa was a Spanish-American biochemist and molecular biologist who was co-awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering an enzyme that enables the synthesis of RNA.

Born in 1905, Severo Ochoa was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who went to medical school at the University of Madrid. After graduating in 1929, Ochoa spent time in Germany doing research, and then returned to Spain and taught at the University of Madrid’s medical school. In 1959, Ochoa was named a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering an enzyme that enables the synthesis of RNA, allowing scientists to recreate the cell process that translates hereditary genes. He died in Madrid in 1993.