Clodomiro Picado

Clodomiro Picado Twight (April 17, 1887 - May 16, 1944) was a Nicaraguan born Costa Rican biologist. Picado may have been the first to have learned about penicillin.

Early life and education
Picado was born in San Marcos, Nicaragua but moved, with his parents, to Costa Rica in 1890. In 1908, Picado won a scholarship of the Costa Rican Congress to study in Paris, France.

In 1913, he finished his university studies in La Sorbonne, where he earned his BSc in zoology and botany, as well as a doctorate degree. In the same year, he came back to Costa Rica to run the laboratory of San Juan de Dios Hospital. At the same time, he was teaching sciences at San Luis Gónzaga School in Cartago city.

Discoveries
Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish scientist, is commonly said to be the person who learned about the antibacterial attacks of a fungus known as Penicillium notatum in 1928. But in March 2000, Costa Rican doctors showed some notebooks with research belonging to Picado. In these notebooks, he explained his experiments between 1915 and 1927. These experiments had been developed to explain that Penicillium decreased bacterial activity.

Picado had reported his work to the Paris Academy of Sciences in France, but this academy did not patent it, even though Picado had studied the fungus years before Fleming.

Picado studied the creation of various anti-venom serums. This led to the create of the Instituto Clodomiro Picado in 1970. It is a research unit of the University of Costa Rica The unit is works on research in Toxicology, Herpetology and Immunology. It also deals with the production of anti-venom. It was named for him in honor of his life’s work.

Related pages
List of scientists from North America

 References 
 http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/publications/articles/journal_37_1/T-letters93.pdf 
 http://aes.iupui.edu/rwise/NoteofMonth/matthew_patayMarch2006CostaRica.htm 
 http://www.micit.go.cr/programas/premio_biografia.htm 

Category:Costa Rican people
Category:Biologists
Category:1887 births
Category:1944 deaths