Francisco Bezanilla is a Chilean-American scientist and professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He is a past president of the

Biophysical Society The Biophysical Society is an international scientific society whose purpose is to lead the development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. Founded in 1958, the Society currently consists of over 7,500 members in academia, government, an ...

and a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Biography

Raised in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, Bezanilla took an early interest in science. When Chile hosted the

1962 World Cup The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held from 30 May to 17 June 1962 in Chile. The qualification rounds took place be ...

, it was uncommon for people to own televisions, so Bezanilla and a friend began building their own television to watch the tournament. While the rudimentary TV was not completed in time for the World Cup, Bezanilla later built a better TV with commercial parts from Argentina, and Bezanilla's family used it for many years. Bezanilla earned an undergraduate biology degree as well as master's and Ph.D. degrees in biophysics, all from the

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities i ...

. Initially intending to earn a medical degree, Bezanilla shifted his focus to research and the Ph.D. program, finding that he liked how

neurophysiology Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...

combined two of his interests, electronics and biology. He conducted research on the nerve cells of

Humboldt squid The Humboldt squid (''Dosidicus gigas''), also known as jumbo squid or jumbo flying squid (EN), and Pota in Peru or Jibia in Chile (ES) is a large, predatory squid living in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the only known species of the genus ''D ...

at the Montemar Institute of Marine Biology. Leaving Chile for the United States in 1969, Bezanilla completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. While in the US, Bezanilla heard that the Humboldt squid was no longer available in Chilean waters. Also noting the political changes in Chile under

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

, he decided to stay in the US. Working on gating current experiments, he became a frequent collaborator with

Clay Armstrong Clay Margrave Armstrong (born 1934) is an American physiologist and a former student of Andrew Fielding Huxley. Armstrong received his MD from Washington University School of Medicine in 1960. He is currently emeritus professor of Physiology at t ...

, who he had met at Montemar. In experiments at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, Bezanilla and Armstrong built their own

signal averaging Signal averaging is a signal processing technique applied in the time domain, intended to increase the strength of a signal relative to noise that is obscuring it. By averaging a set of replicate measurements, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) wil ...

device and became the first to measure the tiny gating currents in

sodium channel Sodium channels are integral membrane proteins that form ion channels, conducting sodium ions (Na+) through a cell's membrane. They belong to the superfamily of cation channels and can be classified according to the trigger that opens the channel ...

s. In 1977, Bezanilla became a neuroscience professor at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA) and later joined the

, becoming the Lillian Eichelberger Cannon Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. Bezanilla was elected a member of the

in 2006. He was the 2013-2014 president of the

. Some of his recent work includes the application of light pulses to gold nanoparticles to activate neurons. He is a member of the Editorial Board for ''

PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scien ...

''. Bezanilla's daughter Magdalena is a biologist and university professor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bezanilla, Francisco Living people Chilean scientists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Pontifical Catholic University of Chile alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Chicago faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Presidents of the Biophysical Society