#SOBLAtrivia

Facts about latino scientists. We want to highlight our contribution to the biology, physics, and biophysics fields.

#SOBLAtrivia: Eduardo Rios, Uruguay, discovered that the DHPR (Cav1.1) in the T-tubule, serves as the voltage sensor that directly activates the Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum in the Excitation-Contraction Coupling of skeletal muscle. Contributed by @carlomanno

#SOBLAtrivia: Margarita Salas, Spain, a L’Oréal UNESCO award laureate discovered the DNA polymerase, determined the direction of reading of the genetic message (5’ -> 3’), and that UAA was a termination triplet, among many other discoveries.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Ramon Latorre is a Chilean biochemist and a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was the first to reconstitute an ion channel into lipid bilayers and described a kinetic model for BK channels.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Nora Volkow, a mexican american whose research demonstrated that drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. She pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects and addictive properties of abusable drugs.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Guillermo Whittembury was a Peruvian physiologist and biophysicist whose pioneer research in the area of water transport and renal physiology contributed to the discovery of Aquaporins.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Eva Nogales, Spain, HHMI investigator at at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She studies the machinery that control gene expression, and cytoskeleton interactions and dynamics in cell division.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Cecilia Tapia Hidalgo, a Chilean biochemist that in n 2006 received Chile's National Prize for Natural Sciences for her contribution in understanding calcium release in excitable cells, including her work with Ryanodine receptors.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Rodolfo Llinás, Colombian, founding father of modern brain science, carried out elegant studies of vertebrate cerebellum. He discovered dendrite Ca2+ spikes, dendritic inhibition, subthreshold oscillations, and presynaptic Ca2+ currents.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Humberto Fernández-Morán, Venezuelan , invented the diamond knife, advanced the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron and cryo-microscopy, worked for @NASA Apollo missions, among many other accomplishments .
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Eugenia del Pino, biologist, a L’Oréal UNESCO award laureate is the first Ecuadorian to be elected to the USA National Academy of Sciences for her work in embryonic development of the marsupial and poison arrow frogs.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: César Milstein (Argentinian-British) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology 1984, jointly, "for theories concerning the specificity in development of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies".
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Francisco Bezanilla (Chilean-American) is a biophysicist whose advanced experiments on neurons and ion channels, including codiscovery of gating currents in Na+ channels, earned his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Gloria M Villegas (Venezuelan), chair of the Biophysics Department (1960-1969), IVIC. Her contributions: ultra-structure of vertebrate retina, nerve cultures, trophic factors, regeneration, reconstitution of the sodium channel and nerve diffusion pathways.
For more information click here.

#SOBLAtrivia: Nancy Carrasco (mexican) is member of the USA National Academy of Sciences and the first scientist to clone and characterize the sodium/iodide symporter, the plasma membrane protein that mediates active transport of iodide in the thyroid.
For more information click here.