He was born in Maracaibo/Venezuela in the year of 1924. At the age of 21 years he graduates of Summa Cum Laude Doctor, and extends his knowledge in the area of Electronic Microscopy, Physics, specializing in Necrology and Neuropathology in the United States.
He was the founder of the IVIC (Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Researches) and creator of the Class of Biophysics of the Central University of Venezuela. He was Minister in the General Marcos Pérez Jiménez Government (Ends of the decade of 1950) and with his government's fall after a coup, the Dr. Humberto Fernández Morán was expelled of the country by the new government.
Among his diverse inventions there is the "diamond blade", used
worldwide for cutting so much ultrafines of biological tissues as of lunar
samples that were brought to the Earth by astronauts.
He also invented
the "Ultramicrotome" for thin cuts of tissues, becoming the first Venezuelan
and the only Latin American who receives the medal "John Scott" in Philadelphia.
He was main investigator of the NASA Apollo Project in the United States of America, and also professor at recognized Universities like Harvard, Chicago, MIT, George Washington, and in Europe, at the University of Stockholm. In United States he was proposed to be nominated to the Nobel Award, which he rejects since to be nominated also had to accept the North-American citizenship, to which he refuses wanting to maintain his Venezuelan nationality.
He was rewarded with the highest badges:
Order and the "Polar Star Gentleman" title conferred by the King of
Sweden; medal "Claude Bernard", of the University of Montreal; the reward
of "Doctor of the year" granted in Cambridge and, a special recognition granted
by the NASA with reason of the tenth anniversary of the Apollo Program.
Doctor Fernández Morán has recognitions
of the IVIC in Venezuela, granted for the first time in 1998.
After his death on March 17th, 1999, the Venezuelan Government requested to the family of Dr. Fernández to bring his remains to the country, and also to confer him the respective honors for his work, but it was not possible. The body of Dr. Humberto Fernández Morán was cremated and his ashes rest today in his second homeland, Stockholm, Sweden.
