ROBERTO DE BELLIS (Uruguay)

ROBERTO DE BELLIS (1939-2007)

Uruguayan hematologist who performed the first autologous bone marrow transplant in South America in 1985.

He graduated in 1968 from the Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay.

De Bellis trained in Hematology in Paris with Professor Jean Bernard. Later he trained Iin Japan, United Kingdom, USA, and again in France.

He was the patron of modern Hematology in Uruguay.

Roberto De Bellis became Full Professor and First Chairman of Hematology at the Faculty of Medicine of Uruguay, in 1980. He published more than 200 medical articles.

In 1985 he founded a bone marrow transplant unit at the British Hospital in Montevideo, where he carried out the first autologous bone marrow transplant in South America.

An Uruguayan postage stamp was issued in his honor in 2008.

REFERENCE:

Muxi P, Wiernik PH 'A tribute to Professor Roberto De Bellis.' Medical Oncology, Volume 24, Number 2, June 2007 , pp. 265-265(1)

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ROCHA LIMA (Brazil)

HENRIQUE DA ROCHA LIMA (1879-1956)

Brazilian physician, pathologist and infectologist.

In 1902, Rocha Lima, Adolfo Lutz, Carlos Chagas and other researchers in the area of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases joined Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1941) in the establishment of the Instituto Serotherapico Federal, known as the Instituto Manguinhos, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1908 this institute was renamed Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

Rocha Lima went to Germany in 1906. In Hamburg, he worked with Stanislaus von Prowazek (1875-1915) and together they described Rickettsia prowazeki.

In 1916, Rocha Lima grouped the microorganisms in the order Rickettsiales and named them “Rickettsia” in honor of the American bacteriologist and pathologist Howard Tayler Ricketts (1871-1910). He named the agent of typhus “Rickettsia prowazeki” after Ricketts and his old friend von Prowazek.

He later described the causative agent of Trench fever.

In Brazil, Rocha Lima participated in the foundation of the Paulista School of Medicine, and of the University of São Paulo.

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RENÉ FAVALORO (Argentina)

RENÉ GERÓNIMO FAVALORO (1923-2000)

Argentine cardiac surgeon who created the technique for coronary bypass surgery.

In 1967, René Favaloro became the first surgeon to perform bypass surgery on a patient suffering from coronary artery disease.

He published, in 1970, the book Surgical Treatment on Coronary Arteriosclerosis.

Dr. Favaloro obtained his MD degree in 1949 in the University of La Plata. He trained as a surgeon in La Plata, Buenos Aires and in the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

He was Director of the Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery of the Favaloro Foundation in Buenos Aires.

Dr. Favaloro is universally recognized for his contribution to the development of coronary bypass surgery.

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