Margarita Salas

Hello! My name is Margarita Salas, and I was a scientist. I was born in a beautiful part of Spain on November 30th, 1938. When I was a little girl, I was full of curiosity. I was always looking at the world around me and asking questions like 'Why does that happen?' and 'How does this work?'. I wanted to understand the secret recipes that made everything in nature work, from the tallest trees in the forest to the tiniest bugs crawling on the ground. This curiosity was like a little spark inside me that just kept growing brighter as I got older. I knew I wanted to spend my life finding the answers to big questions.

When I grew up, I decided to follow my curious heart and become a scientist, even though not many women were scientists back then. I went to a big university to learn all about chemistry and the tiny building blocks that make up all living things. My science adventure really took off in 1964, when I moved all the way to America to work with a very famous scientist named Severo Ochoa. He was like a science superhero to me! In his laboratory, he taught me about something amazing and super tiny that is inside every living thing, including you and me. It’s called DNA. You can think of DNA as a special instruction book that tells your body how to grow and work every single day.

After learning so much, I returned to Spain in 1967 and started my very own lab. I was so excited to begin my own experiments. I studied a teeny-tiny virus called phi29, which is so small you could never see it without a powerful microscope. One day, I discovered something incredible inside it! It was a special little helper, called an enzyme, that could act like a super-fast copy machine for DNA. My big discovery happened in 1984, and this special helper was named phi29 DNA polymerase. Imagine taking just one word from a book and being able to copy it a million times, perfectly and quickly. That’s what my discovery could do with DNA! This was very important because it helps scientists and doctors see DNA even when there is only a tiny bit to start with.

I loved my work and spent my life sharing my passion for science with many students. I lived a long and happy life of discovery for 80 years. Today, my little copy machine for DNA is used all over the world. It helps scientists solve crimes, it helps doctors understand diseases, and it even helps us learn more about the history of people from long ago. I hope my story shows you that if you stay curious and work hard to find answers to your questions, you can make a big difference in the world, too.