Margarita Salas Falgueras, 1st Marchioness of Canero (30 November 1938 – 7 November 2019) was a Spanish scientist in the fields of biochemistry and molecular genetics. She was a feminist referent and an inspiration for scientific generations.

Scientific carrier
After obtaining an undergraduate degree in chemistry, Margarita Salas joined the laboratory of Alberto Sols, where she completed her doctoral thesis on the anomeric specificity of glucose-6-phosphate isomerase. She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the United States for three years (1964–1967) at New York University with Severo Ochoa.

Bacterial virus Φ29 DNA polymerase

During her time in Ochoa's lab, Salas determined the directionality of genetic information reading. She also discovered and characterized the Φ29 phage DNA polymerase, which has biotechnological applications due to its high DNA amplification properties. Her research allowed trace amounts of DNA to be replicated more quickly and reliably, making DNA analysis accessible in fields such as archaeology and forensics, where only trace amounts may be retrieved, and in oncology. In 2012 she was professor ad honorem at the Center for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa, CSIC's research center and the Autonomous University of Madrid, where she continued to work on the bacterial virus Φ29, which infects a non-pathogenic bacterium Bacillus subtilis.

Scientific activity

Salas published more than 300 scientific articles and other works. She also has 8 patents, and presented papers at 398 conferences and seminars. The patent relating to her discovery of Φ29 generated more royalties for the Spanish National Research Council than any of its other patents, with 50% of its patent royalty income deriving from that one patent.