Federico Sánchez Rodríguez 1950-2016

Today the UNAM community at large mourns the passing of Federico Sánchez Rodríguez. He got his bachelor’s degree from the School of Chemistry - UNAM, masters and PhD degrees from Biomedicas - UNAM, postdoc from UCSF, was a member of CIFN-UNAM now called CCG-UNAM (it’s his affiliation in this 1983 paper), and worked most of his career at IBT-UNAM.

I’m sure that he made many friends, trained many students at all levels, and had a highly productive academic career as evidenced on his homepage where he lists many papers, patents, etc. A PubMed author search includes his papers but be careful to not confuse him with other authors that shared his name.

I’ll remember Federico fondly for the time we shared at LCG-UNAM. He was a great teacher and motivated me to ask as many questions as I could think of. My background in biology was weaker than my classmates, and I loved to ask questions of the sort: if X biolgical process is possible, could Y happen in the cell? He let my imagination run wild. Federico was very supportive of an elective class a few of us organized in our 4th year. You could always tell that he fed off the energy of enthusiastic students. He was always there if you needed some advice. At the end of my time at LCG-UNAM, he enjoyed how I argued against other members of the LCG academic committee. He always supported me in my non-traditional choices. Federico knew many things about plants, but also about the best food, the best drinks, and was always eager to share his knowledge with you.

In one of my last interactions with him at FedeFest in August 2014, I asked him a question in the style that I used to during class. I asked him how would he evaluate results from single-cell sequencing and verify that the results were indeed biogical and not technical. A month later, I sent him this paper.

Fede, I will always remember you fondly.

Best, Leonardo

LCG-UNAM 2005-2009