Clodomiro Picado

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Clodomiro Picado Twight was born in Nicaragua on April 17, 1887, but in 1890 his parents came back to Costa Rica. In 1908, with the sponsorship of his teachers, he 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 obtained his bachelor´s degree 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 Natural Sciences at San Luis Gónzaga School in Cartago city, in 1914.

The discovery of antibacterial attacks of one fungus also known as Penicillium notatum is usually attributed to Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist, in 1928. But in March 2000, Costa Rican doctors presented some notebooks with studies belonging to Doctor Clodomiro Picado where he explained his experiments between 1915 and 1927.These experiments had been developed to explain the action of Penicillium over the decreasing of bacterial activity.

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

He developed his greatest international study about the creation of various anti-venom serums. Therefore, the Instituto Clodomiro Picado, founded in 1970, is a research unit of the University of Costa Rica dedicated to research in the disciplines of Toxicology, Herpetology and Immunology and the production of anti-venom. This institution is called for his name as acknowledgement by his life’s work.

He published more than 115 studies about biological sciences.

Doctor Picado died in 1944.