Alberto Oehling was born in Granada in 1928. In 1955 he obtained his Medical Degree from the University of Granada, and received his doctorate on year later. He started his career in the field in the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) as Section Chief of the Allergology Polyclinic of the University of Granada. In 1958, he moved to Germany, where he worked as a consultant in the Allergie Forschungs Institut in Bad Lippspringe, and later with Professor Hansen in Lübeck. In 1961, he returned to Spain to create the Department of Allergology of the University Clinic of Navarre in Pamplona. He served as Director of this Department until 1998.
Alberto Oehling was the President of the World Allergy Organization from 2004 to 2007, as well as the founder and Director of the Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology – currently the official organ of the Spanish Society of Allergology.
Doctor Oehling has been the author of over two hundred articles, hundreds of chapters, and eight books. More than a hundred specialists from all continents received training under his guidance, and he supervised over a hundred Doctoral Theses.
His main contributions have been to frame the specialty of Allergology in the University training setting; develop the University teaching program on the subject; establish Allergology as a specialty in Spain; and participate in the development of the resident in training program in Clinical Immunology and Allergology. From his early days in the University of Navarre, the Faculty of Medicine introduced the truncal subject of Allergology, which has allowed generations of physicians to gain in-depth knowledge in the field of allergic diseases. Doctor Oehling had the vision and insight to defend the Allergology laboratory as a key diagnostic tool in our field, and in this regard always combined his professional healthcare activities with pioneering research work.
