Not a textbook case
Humberto Fernández-Morán: Revolutionized microscopy in neuroscience and beyond
This week, in honor of Brain Awareness Week, Neurocracy will profile trailblazing and influential scientists who are often overlooked in neuroscience history.
During a flight over the magnificent Angel Falls in his native Venezuela, Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos was struck with a revolutionary idea—or so the story goes. Born in 1924, Fernández-Morán was no stranger to strokes of innovative genius, having previously invented the “diamond blade” that was used by NASA on precious extraterrestrial specimens. After studying medicine at the University of Munich, he returned to Venezuela and received a second Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Caracas. In 1947, Fernández-Morán began work as a research fellow at the the University of Stockholm, where he would later earn a MS in cell biology and a PhD in biophysics. He went on to found the Venezuelan Institute for Neurological and Brain Studies (now the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research).
Apparently, it was the recurrent flow of the waterfall that inspired Fernández-Morán to develop the cryo-ultramicrotome that combined his previous diamond knife invention and the ultramicrotome, a tool used to cut extremely thin tissue sections in a precise and continuous fashion. He was also instrumental in the development of the electron microscope, a high resolution microscope that allows magnification of up to 10,000,000 times. The electron microscope made possible, for the first time, the imaging of individual neuronal connections at the synaptic level and is still frequently used by researchers today for ultrastructural analysis. Both the cryo-ultramicrotome and electron microscope dramatically improved the way that scientists process and image neural tissue.
Fernández-Morán was not only an inventor but also a renowned researcher who captured the first electron microscope images of the myelin layer, a multi-cellular structure that wraps along the length of a neuron’s axon and provides electrical insulation that is critical for neural signal propagation and function. In addition, he took electron micrographs of several tissues and intercellular structures, providing some of the first images of biological samples with ultrastructural resolution. Beyond his inventions and pioneering imaging work, his research spanned many fields, including the study of nerve fibers, retina photoreceptors, spinach chloroplasts, oxygen transport, and RNA synthesis in E. Coli. He was also one of the lead investigators of the NASA Apollo Project.
Fernández-Morán received a great deal of recognition for his trailblazing work including the Claude Bernard Medal from the University of Montreal, Honorary Doctorate from Milton University, the Knight of the Order of the Polar Star, conferred by the Swedish King, and the John Scott Medal for his invention of the diamond scalpel. He died in 1999 at the age of 75, remembered as a dynamic inventor and scientist.
—A.I.
