Jordi Folch Pi
| Jordi Folch Pi | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 25, 1911 Barcelona, Spain |
| Died |
October 3, 1979 Boston |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Alma mater | University of Barcelona, Spain |
| Known for | isolation of brain signaling lipids with the Folch technique |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry, Neurochemistry |
| Institutions | Harvard |
Jordi Folch Pi (March 25, 1911 – October 3, 1979) was a Catalan biochemist at Harvard University (McLean Hospital) who is recognized universally as one of the founders of the field of structural chemistry of complex lipids and as a leader in the development of Neurochemistry as a distinct discipline within the Neurosciences.
Folch was born in Barcelona, Spain. His father Rafel Folch was a lawyer and a Catalan poet, and his mother Maria Pi a teacher. As his mother liked and spoke French, Folch went to high school at the Lycée Français of Barcelona, from which he graduated in 1927. He then undertook Medicine studies and received an M.D. degree from the University of Barcelona Medical school in 1932.
Folch's clinical training at university included a period as an intern in the surgical clinic of Dr. Antoni Trias and as the sole physician in Almedret, a small Catalan village of 800 people. By contrast, the basic sciences consisted mainly of lectures with little opportunity for hands-on laboratory experience. Folch was fortunate to have the opportunity to study at the Institute of Physiology in Barcelona, which was founded by his cousin August Pi Sunyer and Jesus Maria Bellido and was dedicated to carrying out basic research using contemporary methods and ideas. He worked as an assistant to another cousin Cesar Pi Sunyer and by the time he received his M.D. degree, they had jointly published four papers on glycogen synthesis in three different languages (German, French, and Spanish). Folch also studied blood glucose and lactic acid metabolism under the direction of the man he considered his scientific mentor, Professor Rosend Carrasco Formiguera. He was the person who particularly encouraged the young Folch in his research. Folch's experiences at the Institute of Physiology intensified his interest in physiology and in clinical questions, particularly as they related to metabolic problems. Thanks to Carrasco's contacts, Francisco Duran Reynals, a biochemist at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, became interested in Folch and arranged for him to come to that institution as a volunteer.
In 1936, just before the Spanish Civil War broke out, he was accepted as a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and he took the post. At the insistence of his family (who had fought for the defeated Republican side—his brother Albert and sister Nuria had to exile into Mexico and his other brother Frederic spent a few months in prison after returning from exile in France), he decided to stay in the United States after the Civil War ended.
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