Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos (18 February 192417 March 1999) was a Venezuelan research scientist born in

Maracaibo Maracaibo ( , ; ) is a city and municipality in northwestern Venezuela, on the western shore of the strait that connects Lake Maracaibo to the Gulf of Venezuela. It is the largest city in Venezuela and is List of cities in Venezuela by population ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

, known for inventing the diamond knife or scalpel, significantly advancing the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconducting technology, and many other scientific contributions.

Career

Fernández-Morán founded the Venezuelan Institute for Neurological and Brain Studies, the predecessor of the current Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC). He studied medicine at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1944. He contributed to the development of the

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing it ...

and was the first person to use the concept of cryo-ultramicrotomy. After flying over Angel Falls in his home country of

he was inspired by the concept of the smoothly reoccurring flow system inherent in a waterfall to take his diamond knife invention and combine it with an ultramicrotome to dramatically improve the ultra-thin sectioning of electron microscopy samples. The ultramictrotome advances the rotating, drum-mounted specimen sample in such small increments (utilizing the very low thermal expansion coefficient of

Invar Invar, also known generically as FeNi36 (64FeNi in the US), is a nickel–iron alloy notable for its uniquely low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE or α). The name ''Invar'' comes from the word ''invariable'', referring to its relative lac ...

) past the stationary diamond knife that sectioning thicknesses of several Angstrom units are possible. He also helped to advance the field of electron cryomicroscopy - the use of superconductive electromagnetic lenses cooled with liquid helium in electron microscopes to achieve the highest resolution possible - among many other research topics. Fernández-Morán was commissioned in 1957 with the supervision of the first Venezuelan research nuclear reactor, the RV-1 nuclear reactor, one of the first in Latin America. He was appointed Minister of Education during the last year of the regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez and was forced to leave

when the dictatorship was overthrown in 1958. He worked with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

for the Apollo Project and taught in many universities, such as

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and the

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

. He donated a collection of his papers to the National Library of Medicine in 1986.

Personal life

His wife Anna was Swedish and together they had two daughters, Brigida Elena and Verónica. The body of Humberto Fernández-Morán was cremated and his ashes rest today in Cemetery The Square Luxburg-Carolath in his hometown,

Inventions

* Diamond knife *Ultra

microtome A microtome (from the Greek ''mikros'', meaning "small", and ''temnein'', meaning "to cut") is a cutting tool used to produce extremely thin slices of material known as ''sections'', with the process being termed microsectioning. Important in sc ...

Awards and honors

* 1967, the

John Scott Award John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way. "...the John Scott Medal Fund, establish ...

, for his invention of the diamond scalpel. Dr. Eugene Garfield is member of the Advisory Committee. * Knight of the Order of the Polar Star * Claude Bernard Medal, University of Montreal * Cambridge annual Medical Prize

References

External links

The Patent of the Diamond Scalpel
- September 1955.
Research done for NASA by Fernández Morán
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez-Moran Villalobos, Humberto 1924 births 1999 deaths People from Maracaibo Venezuelan inventors 20th-century Venezuelan scientists Microscopists Academic staff of the Central University of Venezuela Knights of the Order of the Polar Star 20th-century inventors Venezuelan emigrants to Sweden Education ministers of Venezuela Marcos Pérez Jiménez ministers