Leloir Institute

The research center was inaugurated in 1947 by way of an initiative of University of Buenos Aires Physiology Professors Bernardo Houssay and Luis Leloir.

The project was funded by the philanthropic support of local textile industrialist Jaime Campomar, and Dr. Houssay devoted a share of the proceeds from the Nobel Prize in Physiology he earned that year to the establishment of the institute.

[1] Dr. Leloir's work at the institute on nucleotides and their role in human metabolic pathways earned him the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology.

As a consequence of this 1957 discovery, the cause of a congenital disease called galactosemia was first identified; not detected in time, it can cause mental retardation, cataracts and cirrhosis.

Construction started on the institute's new annex in 2007, consisting of 2,900 m² (31,000 ft²) of space for imaging, as well as for expanded research on cell cultures and biophysics.