Manuel Francisco Morales (July 23, 1919 – November 12, 2009) was a Honduran-born American
biophysicist
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study Biology, biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from Molecule, molecular to organismic ...
who did pivotal research on the molecular basis of
muscle contraction
Muscle contraction is the activation of tension-generating sites within muscle cells. In physiology, muscle contraction does not necessarily mean muscle shortening because muscle tension can be produced without changes in muscle length, such as ...
.
Scientific career
In the 1950s at the
Naval Medical Research Institute
The Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) is an agency that performs basic and applied biomedical research to meet the needs of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. Its areas of focus include study of infectious diseases, biodef ...
, Morales and Terrell Hill showed that the high energy of the terminal
phosphate
In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid .
The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...
bond in
ATP was due to
electrostatic
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest (static electricity).
Since classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for amber ...
repulsion between the three phosphate groups,
and he and Richard Podolsky measured the heat of
hydrolysis
Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution reaction, substitution, elimination reaction, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water ...
for ATP cleavage, the fundamental energy currency of biological metabolism.
Awards and service
Morales was elected a member of the US
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 ...
and awarded the
Order of the Rising Sun
The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...
(Japan). He served as 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 ...
for 1968–69,
and was the founding editor of the ''
Annual Review of Biophysics
The ''Annual Review of Biophysics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published annually by Annual Reviews. It covers all aspects of biophysics with solicited review articles. Ken A. Dill has been its editor since 2013. According to the ''Jour ...
''.
[Biophysical Society: Newsletter: Obituary: Manuel Francisco Morales]
(accessed 11 February 2013)
Key publications
*Hill TL, Morales MF. (1951) On "High Energy Phosphate Bonds" of Biochemical Interest. ''
Journal of the American Chemical Society
The ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the ''Journal of Analytical ...
'' 73: 1656–1660 ()
*Botts J, Morales MF (1953) Analytical description of the effects of modifiers and of enzyme multivalency upon the steady state catalyzed reaction rate, ''Trans. Faraday Soc.'', 49(6), 696–6707 ()
*Podolsky RJ, Morales MF. (1956) The Enthalpy Change of Adenosine Triphosphate Hydrolysis ''
Journal of Biological Chemistry
The ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' (''JBC'') is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1905., jbc.org Since 1925, it is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research in ...
'' 218: 945–959
pdf
*Mendelson RA, Morales MF, Botts J. (1973) Segmental flexibility of the S-1 moiety of myosin. ''
Biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
'' 12: 2250–2255 ()
*Morales MF, Botts J. (1979) On the molecular basis for chemomechanical energy transduction in muscle. ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA'' 76: 3857–3859
*Botts J, Takashi R, Torgerson P, Hozumi T, Muhlrad A, D Mornet D, Morales MF. (1984) On the mechanism of energy transduction in myosin subfragment 1. ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA'' 81: 2060–2064
*Botts J, Thomason JF, Morales MF. (1989) On the origin and transmission of force in actomyosin subfragment 1. ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA'' 86: 2204–2208
*Onishi H, Mochizuki N, Morales MF. (2004) On the Myosin Catalysis of ATP Hydrolysis. ''
Biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
'' 43: 3757–3763 ()
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morales, Manuel
American biophysicists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
1919 births
2009 deaths
Honduran emigrants to the United States
Harvard Medical School alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Annual Reviews (publisher) editors
Presidents of the Biophysical Society