Jorge Allende

Though he retired from active science in 2009, he remains a professor at the Faculty of Medicine. He was also Research Vice President of the University of Chile. He published his autobiography in 2010.

With his wife, Catherine Connelly, he was on sabbatical at the University of California at San Diego, when the 1973 coup in Chile took place. He returned to Chile in May 1974 and was one of the main defenders of the University of Chile's autonomy, endangered by the military intervention in academic life. In December 1975 he co-signed, with other academics, a letter entitled "University under surveillance" opposing military intervention in the University of Chile. The letter was written by philosopher Jorge Millas and published in the newspaper "El Mercurio". The letter was the first appearance of a public statement by a group of academics who criticized the handling of the University of Chile by the military government.

He carried out his doctoral studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1961 under the tutorship of Prof. F.M. Richards. He did post doctoral work with Prof. Fritz Lipmann at Rockefeller University and with Marshall Warren Nirenberg at NIH.

He married Catherine Connelly (also a biochemist) in Holyoke, Massachusetts, On September 16, 1961. He raised a family of four children: Miguel Luis, Juan Ignacio, Jorge Eduardo and Maria Amparo and has 13 grandchildren.

During the 1960s, his research was focused on protein synthesis, a field in which he made crucial contributions. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in studying the mechanism of hormonal induction of oocyte maturation. His later research is focused in two ubiquitous protein kinases, CK1 and CK2, involved in the phosphorylation of key cellular proteins.

Jorge Allende was born in Cartago, Costa Rica, son of Octavio Allende Echeverría, Chilean Consul in the city of Puntarenas, and Amparo Rivera Ortiz, a Costa Rican artist. Because of his father's job as a diplomat, he spent his childhood years between Costa Rica, Chile and the United States. He finished high school in a Jesuit School in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his father was appointed as the Chilean Consul. Subsequently, he studied at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He obtained the Bachelor of Science in chemistry degree in 1957.

Jorge Eduardo Allende Rivera, (born 11 November 1934) is a Chilean biochemist and biophysicist known for his contributions to the understanding of proteic biosynthesis and how transfer RNA is generated, and the regulation of maturation of amphibian eggs. He has been a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences since 2001, and was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Nature Sciences (Chile) in 1992.