One of the singularities of Catalonia in the late 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st is that it has been capable of producing top-level professionals in medicine who have become leading world references in several clinical specialties. Of all of them, the oncologist Josep Baselga, who died this Sunday in La Cerdanya, was clearly among the most prestigious and not only for his outstanding career, which led him to direct the institution considered the best oncology research centre in the world, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, but for the legacy he leaves as an undisputed figure in the search for new treatments in the fight against cancer, especially breast cancer.
I had the opportunity to talk with Baselga several times, both in New York and in Barcelona, on the occasion of awards he received, lectures he gave and sometimes also in a much more relaxed context. I remember one summer scene with José Manuel Lara Bosch, then president of Grup Planeta, who died in 2015, always a brilliant figure, after a dinner in uptown Barcelona, trying, with his usual dialectical force, to give a lesson on cancer to professor Baselga, who maintained a polite silence.
It was inevitable that one would always end up talking to Baselga about cancer, about the progress being made, and that was when one felt his optimism that we were at the beginning of the end of the time when this disease was always at the top of the mortality ranking. In addition to being a born optimist, even in the most difficult circumstances, he was a tireless fighter for the lives of his patients, to whom he always offered a new option - sometimes even revolutionary - stubbornly bringing newly-arrived medical advances to patients in order not to ever give up a battle.
His death at the age of 61, a victim of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a deadly and rapidly evolving degenerative brain disorder that has no treatment today and is one of those diseases that can be considered rare, with around a dozen cases a year in Catalonia, ends an unfinished career, although his immeasurable legacy in cancer research and personalized oncology will certainly endure.
When, in July 2016, Baselga along with fellow oncologists Manel Esteller and Joan Massagué received the XXVIII Catalonia International Prize from president Carles Puigdemont, there was a memorable scene of the three together in the Saló Sant Jordi of the Generalitat Palace. Catalan talent which has been scattered around the world finally received a recognition of which we should be proud as a country. As Esteller wrote on social media, a few hours after learning of Baselga's death: "An extraordinary talent and a pioneer of modern oncology. Such a loss."