Profile of Raúl Padrón

Jennifer Viegas

PNAS December 29, 2020 117 (52) 32830-32832

Figure: Structural biologist Raúl Padrón – the tarantula skeletal muscle

Over the past four decades, structural biologist Raúl Padrón has elucidated muscle contraction at the molecular and atomic level using a model system that he and his colleague Roger Craig developed: tarantula skeletal muscle. Padrón’s research on how skeletal muscle thick filaments relax and become activated is helping to inform the molecular pathogenesis of human muscle diseases. For such advances, Padrón was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2018; later, he emigrated to the United States due to his native Venezuela’s ongoing political crisis. Now a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Padrón answers longstanding questions in his Inaugural Article (1) concerning striated muscle contraction that shed light on its underlying mechanisms in invertebrates and vertebrates.

Home Laboratory at Age 11

Padrón was born in Caracas to a concert pianist mother and pharmacologist and microbiologist father. Through his mother he gained a strong work ethic.

Tarantula Model System

In 1980 Padrón began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Myosin Interacting-Heads Motif

After completing their postdoctoral stints in 1983, Craig started his laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Padrón began his at IVIC, where he also served as an associate, senior, and emeritus investigator. 

Motif Predating Animals

While analyzing the muscle structure of the parasite Schistosoma mansoni, Craig, Padrón, and their team observed an IHM identical to that identified in tarantula myosin filaments

Disease-Associated Mutations and IHM

In collaboration with Harvard University professors Christine and Jonathan Seidman, who study the genetic mechanisms of heart disease, Padrón and colleagues analyzed a model of human cardiac myosin

Challenges Posed by Venezuela Crisis

Numerous factors led to the collapse of Venezuela's economy, beginning in about 2010. Padrón says, “After my last HHMI grant finished in 2011, keeping my [laboratory] running in Venezuela became an extremely difficult task as the Venezuela crisis continued.

Structural Explanation

Padrón’s Inaugural Article (1) represents an international effort involving researchers from his IVIC laboratory, Craig, and other colleagues in the United States, as well as scientists from Moscow State University’s Institute of Mechanics. 

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Despite the personal challenges that Padrón still faces, having left his homeland behind, he cannot imagine slowing down his schedule. As he says, “Structural biology is an endless story.”

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