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
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*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. ''

'' 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