Humberto Fernandez-Moran

Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos (February 18, 1924, La Cañada de Urdaneta, Venezuela - March 17, 1999, Stockholm, Sweden), was a doctor and renowned Venezuelan scientist in the field of the physical and biological sciences. He received the Vovain prize in 1967 for his invention, the diamond-tipped scalpel. He also contributed to the development of the electron microscope, and was the first person to introduce the concept of cryoultramicrotomy. He worked in the area of cryoelectron microscopy, in the use of superconducting lenses and liquid helium in electron microscopes. He helped in the improvement of ultramicrotomes.

Fernández-Morán was the founder of the Venezuelan Institute of Neurology and Brain Research (IVNIC), precursor of the current Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC). He was Minister of Education at the end of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez government, for which he was forced to leave Venezuela in 1958, persecuted by the new government installed, where his scientific contributions were banned from Venezuela. During his exile, he served as a research professor at the University of Chicago, being one of the scientists who contributed the most to the development of the NASA project in the Apollo program.

He studied medicine at the University of Munich, graduating summa cum laude in 1944. He married Anna Browallius (of Swedish nationality), with whom he had two daughters: Brígida Elena and Verónica. Fernández was a polyglot, speaking fluently Spanish, English, Swedish, French and German. Fernández died in Stockholm, the product of a brain aneurysm. The body of Dr. Humberto Fernández was cremated, and his ashes rest in Sweden, Stockholm. Sometimes it is confused with the mortal remains of his father, Don Luis Fernández-Morán, who do rest in the El Cuadrado cemetery, in his hometown.

Childhood and youth

Humberto was born in La Cañada de Urdaneta, in the pediatric specialties hospital, on February 18, 1924. His parents were Luis Fernández-Morán and Elena Villalobos. Humberto, attends his primary studies in Maracaibo but only in part. Given that in 1936, when he was barely 12 years old, he had to go into exile with his parents and his brothers (Tito, Ofelia and Alfonso) to New York, due to the political differences that his father had with the then governor of Zulia State, Vincencio Pérez Soto. Later, shortly after the death of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, Fernández returned to Venezuela and continued his high school studies at the German School of Maracaibo. In 1937, when he had not finished high school, he was sent to Germany by his father and on the recommendation of the school director due to his high academic abilities.

Studies

Humberto Fernández-Morán received a B.A. (degree) at the Schulgemeinde Institute in the Schwandorf district of Bavaria and was then sent at the age of 16 to study medicine at the University of Munich in Hitlerite Germany. He begins his studies shortly after the start of the Second World War, his father tries to convince him to return to Venezuela, but he refuses to do so. He graduated as a surgeon and doctor of medical sciences in 1944. Eight months after graduating, he returned to Venezuela but was unable to practice his profession because he was a minor. He revalidates his degree at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and works for a short period of time at the Maracaibo psychiatric hospital and teaches biophysics at the UCV for 3 months. Later he completed an internship in neurology and neuropathology at George Washington University from 1945 to 1946. From 1946 to 1948 he did a neurosurgery residency at the Serafimer Hospital in Stockholm with neurosurgeon Herbert Olivecrona, while working as a researcher in the Electron Microscopy area of 1947 to 1949 at the Nobel Institute for Physics and then for three years (1948-1951) at the Institute for Cellular and Genetic Research, part of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. In 1951 he received a master's degree in cell biology and the following year his doctorate in biophysics from Stockholm University.

Academy

In 1954, Fernández-Morán decided to return to Caracas and after talking with President Marcos Pérez Jiménez about the need to have a high-level research center—American or European style—he obtained government support to founding the Venezuelan Institute of Neurology and Brain Research (IVNIC), giving it a magnificent geographical location on the top of a mountain called Altos de Pipe (Miranda state). The Latin American Scientific Library was created there, the first nuclear reactor in Latin America and the first scientific and technological center on the continent were installed. The creation of the IVNIC cost 50 million dollars, supported by the country's oil wealth and the interest of General Pérez Jiménez to bring Venezuela to the technological forefront and development at the level of first world countries. Fernández's proposal was based on the idea of incorporating the most recent advances in electron microscopy to the study of the brain. From its inauguration in December 1954, Fernández directed the IVNIC until 1958. On June 6, 1955, he created the Chair of Biophysics from the Central University of Venezuela.

On January 13, 1958, the then President Pérez Jiménez removed General Néstor Prato Chacón as Minister of Education to name him Chief of the General Staff, and in his position he appointed Fernández, the man with the greatest scientific prestige in the country in his time. Fernández only lasted 9 days in his post as Minister of Education when Pérez Jiménez was overthrown. With the fall of the dictator, Fernández was forced by the new government to go into exile in the United States so as not to return to Venezuela in good shape. permanent. Starting in 1959, the IVNIC became the current Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) and the new government vetoed his research, which was well received in the United States and Europe. In Boston, he was hired by the Massachusetts General Hospital as an assistant of biophysics of the neurology service until 1962. During those 4 years in the American hospital he gave talks and speeches in the Biology department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a research associate at Harvard University.

In 1962, Fernández was hired as a professor in the Department of Biophysics at the University of Chicago, where he conceived and developed the high-resolution electron ultramicroscope, where he received the distinction of professor for life. He also taught at different universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.

Dr. Humberto Fernández (Izq) and Prof. Eduardo Gónzalez (Der) at the Stadal Basic School "Humberto Fernández"in Maracaibo.

Scientific research

In 1955 he patented the diamond-tipped scalpel and in 1959 he contributed to the use of cryofixation and low-temperature preparation techniques using helium II, applying them to the study of tissue ultrastructure. Likewise, he made important contributions to the knowledge of nerve structure.

In 1960 he proposed for the first time to directly observe frozen hydrated samples (frozen-hydrated), building the first cryoelectronic microscope and the first cryo-sample holder, thus introducing the concept of cryo- electron microscopy being considered by Harvard University in the list of the 100 scholars who contributed the most to the scientific development of the last century. In 1970 he was hired by NASA to work on the Apollo project in the field of physical-chemical analysis of lunar rocks. Dr. Fernández presents at the I Venezuelan and Latin American Congress of Neurosciences (Maracaibo 1979) the advances in research on the molecular organization of cell membranes analyzed with the proposed technique.

In 1998, the IVIC created the Humberto Fernández Structural Biology Center with the aim of interpreting biological phenomena at a molecular level through a wide range of studies of the structure of proteins, nucleic acids, membranes, organelles and viruses using techniques such as cryoelectron microscopy, digital image processing, nuclear magnetic resonance, small angle X-ray diffraction and X-ray crystallography.

Acknowledgments

• Title of Knight of the Order of the Polar Star, conferred by the King of Sweden.

• Medalla Claude Bernard, delivered by the University of Montreal.

• Medical Award of the Year, awarded by the University of Cambridge.

• Medalla John Scott 1967

• Special recognition given by NASA on the occasion of the X anniversary of the Apollo program.

• Centro de Biología Estructural Humberto Fernández del IVIC.

• State School "Humberto Fernández" in Maracaibo.

• (196476) Humfernandez: asteroid of the main belt named in honor of Humberto Fernández, discovered on 2 May 2003 by the astronomers Ignacio Ferrín and Carlos Leal at the National Astronomical Observatory of Llano del Hato, located in the Cordillera de Mérida, Venezuela.