Ramón Latorre de la Cruz
He showed that a cell membrane has gates, and spent fifty years working out how they open. He was the first Chilean elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
A cell is wrapped in a fatty membrane that, in principle, lets nothing electrically charged through. And yet sodium comes in, potassium goes out, calcium bursts in, and a heartbeat, a muscle contraction and a thought all depend on that traffic. The membrane has doors.
Ramón Latorre devoted his life to those doors —ion channels: proteins embedded in the membrane that open and close— and was the first Chilean admitted to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
From Liceo Lastarria to the first Chilean doctorate in Sciences
He studied at Liceo José Victorino Lastarria and entered Biochemistry at what was then the Escuela de Química y Farmacia at the Universidad de Chile, graduating in 1965. He was one of the first students in that university's newly created Doctorate in Sciences programme —alongside Cecilia Hidalgo—, and graduated in 1969.
With a National Institutes of Health fellowship he worked in that institution's Department of Physiology until 1972. He then carried out research at Duke, Chicago and Harvard. Together with Claudio Teitelboim he founded the Centro de Estudios Científicos, and in 2011 he joined the Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso, where he has served as director.
Born in Santiago
Biochemist, Universidad de Chile
Doctor of Sciences
From the first cohort of the Universidad de Chile doctorate, alongside Cecilia Hidalgo.
National Institutes of Health
On a fellowship, in the Department of Physiology.
Duke, Chicago, Harvard
Research posts in the United States.
National Academy of Sciences
United States — first Chilean admitted.
Premio Nacional de Ciencias Naturales
Chile's national prize for the natural sciences.
Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Why the panel gave him the prize
The 2002 Premio Nacional de Ciencias Naturales was awarded to him for work of international standing related mainly to ion channels. According to coverage of his fifty years of research, he was the first researcher to demonstrate the existence of ion channels in muscle tissue.
He is the Chilean researcher in the biological sciences with the greatest impact worldwide, and ranks among the top 2% of the world's most cited scientists according to Stanford University's ranking.
The subject he always returns to
In science, the mentor has to be a firefighter.
Ramón Latorre, in La Tercera, translated from Spanish
The image is precise and not very romantic: the mentor's job is not to spark someone else's vocation but to keep it from burning out along the way. In another interview he put it more bluntly: "I think there is something fundamental here: what changes your life is some teacher" (translated from Spanish).
And about the conditions under which that teaching happens, he does not mince words either: "Science in Chile needs much more funding and more government support" (translated from Spanish).
What the sources do not quite settle
He graduated as a biochemist in 1965 and earned his Doctorate in Sciences in 1969, in the first cohort of that programme at the Universidad de Chile.
Recorded in the Universidad de Chile's Premios Nacionales (National Prizes) profile, which also mentions Cecilia Hidalgo as a classmate in that cohort.
He was born on 29 October 1941 in Santiago.
The year appears in Wikidata and Wikipedia; the full date, in a La Tercera interview. No Chilean institutional source publishes the day. That is why this page records only the year.
He founded the Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso in 2011.
Two press reports say he founded it; the Universidad de Chile's profile says that in that year he "took up the post of Director", which leaves open the possibility that the centre already existed.
He received the TWAS prize in 1991.
Wikidata and one press report say 1991; the Spanish-language Wikipedia says 1992.
- Universidad de Chile. Perfil oficial de Premios Nacionales
View source → - La Tercera. Entrevista: «En ciencias, el mentor debe ser un apagador de incendios»
View source → - El Mostrador (2026). Entrevista en Puerto de Ideas: formación, mentores y trayectoria
View source → - Página V (2021). Cincuenta años de investigación, y la fundación del CINV
View source →
How to cite
This is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, as long as you give credit.
FísicaEterna. (2026). Ramón Latorre de la Cruz — biography, FísicaEterna. Retrieved [access date] from https://www.fisicaeterna.cl/en/biographies/ramon-latorre
@misc{fisicaeterna_ramon_latorre,
author = {FísicaEterna},
title = {Ramón Latorre de la Cruz — biography, FísicaEterna},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.fisicaeterna.cl/en/biographies/ramon-latorre},
note = {CC BY 4.0}
}