Is gone the one who will not leave, the one who lives and will live fertile every time the word “Science” is heard in Mexico. The one who does not occur in pairs, the one who became a pathologist by profession and a scientist by vocation (although he did not believe in vocations). The lover of good language, the philosopher, the professional of doubt, the music lover, the thinker, the school, the teacher, El Viejo Alquimista (1993), the one who offered us the freedom, for better or for worse, to solve and approach scientific problems, the one who taught that “science is a human and creative activity that aims to understand nature, whose product is the knowledge obtained by a scientific method organized in a deductive way and that aspires to the consensus of technically trained individuals” (Fig. 1), and that the results of an experiment are useless if no controls were made; the tough, the strong. The one who wrote 87 books and more than 160 scientific articles and other popular ones; the humanist, the writer, the disseminator, the historian, The National College (1980), the Mexican Academy of Language (1987), the Emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM (1994) and the National System of Researchers (1992), the Honoris Causa at various universities, the Tamaulipas decorated (2006) (Fig. 2), the professor at Harvard, the founder of the Pathology Unit of the General Hospital of Mexico (1953-1954), the Bioethics committee, the UNAM governing board (1983-1993), the bust in the Secretary of Health (2013) (Fig. 3), the science and technology counselor of the presidency, the National Science Award (1974). The one who founded, directed, protected and abounded our house, the Research Unit in Experimental Medicine (1989) (Fig. 4), which he arrived every day before seven o’clock in the morning to work. The “professor with a little face” as Dr. Raúl Cicero called him, “the swordsman”, as Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo called him. The one who honored his teacher with his name in an auditorium “Issac Costero” (2010). The name on the street in Querétaro, in the CBT (Technological High School) of Ayapango, Edo. de México and in a Tamaulipas kindergarten. The human being, the character, the member of his family. The legacy is vast and diverse, enough to miss him, but also to motivate us to learn, to grow and honor him by following in his footsteps and his “Ten Reasons to be a Scientist” (2013) to that I dare to add the eleventh: be like him, because “At UNAM, knowledge is not only imparted, it is also generated.” We had him, we learned from him, and he inspired many of us, and he will surely inspire more, through his work and his way of disseminating it “Learn from yesterday, live for today and dream for tomorrow”.

Figure 1 Definition of science by Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo. 

Figure 2 Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo receiving the Luis García de Arellano Merit Medal, awarded by the H. Congress of the State of Tamaulipas 2006. 

Figure 3 Bust of Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo in the Esplanade of Illustrious Doctors in the gardens of the Ministry of Health. 

Figure 4 Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo at the Experimental Medicine Research Unit. 

Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo, “Don Ruy”, “Dr. RPT”, was born on November 11, 1924, in Tamaulipas and died on January 26, 2022, in Ensenada, Mexico. The transcendence of Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo imposed a time of arduous preparation and work. Not only during his life, after his departure continues, and will continue, since, among other things, he laid the foundations for the current study of Anatomical Pathology in Mexico. Science in Mexico found in him, not only an intelligent human being, creative and committed to activity as a scientist, but also a great disseminator and precursor of it. He understood that science in Mexico is not underdeveloped because Mexico is an underdeveloped country, but on the contrary, Mexico is an underdeveloped country because its science is underdeveloped. He postulated science as an instrument that not only serves to understand and treat diseases, but also for the development of the country. His humanism and philosophy of science represent today a great impact on the way we do science in laboratories. He trained countless doctors and scientists in the country who profess their activities with great influence from the teacher Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo. This short text aims to encourage readers to seek, in his figure, knowledge, in his legacy and inspiration, in his person: The eleventh reason to be a scientist.

With perpetual gratitude, admiration and respect to Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo, and full empathy and solidarity with his family.