This book is a compilation of articles based on some of the talks given at the Centro de Estudios Cientificos (CECS) in Valdivia during the course of a celebration to th mark the 60 birthdays of Ramon Latorre and Enrico Stefani. Ramon Latorre is one of the most outstanding figures in channel Biophysics today. The first surprise is that he trained as a Biochemist! He soon, however, became a biophysicist through his work with Guayo (Eduardo) Rojas who guided him during his Ph. D thesis in the Laboratorio de Fisiologia Celular in Montemar. His work at N. I. H with Gerald Eherenstein and Harold Lecar constitutes one of the milestones of single ion channel Biophysics. This classical work, done in planar bilayers, set the basis for understanding voltage-dependent conductances with single channel studies and predates, by many years, later studies using patch clamping techniques. Ramon was one of the firsts to find and recognize the importance of calci- activated potassium channels and to begin a detailed study of channel properties. He pioneered the ideas of voltage and calcium modulation of the open probability and he added detailed studies of gating and its modulation by other ions. Ramon is also interested in permeation and selectivity and he produced classical studies on the number of water molecules in the channel and sites occupied by barium. Results and concepts that have recently taken front page as the structure of KcSa has been described.
About the Author:

After training as a Biologist at the University of Chile, Santiago, Francisco V. Sepúlveda took his Ph.D. at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland (1974-1978), with a Zyma-Nyon (Switzerland) fellowship. Postdoctoral training was at the AFRC Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research, Babraham, Cambridge, UK, from 1978 to 1980. After a stay in the University of Nice, France, as Maître de confèrences associè at the Faculty of Sciences, he returned to Babraham, Cambridge, as Senior Scientific Officer in 1979. While there he was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer and, within the Individual Merit Award national scheme, to Senior Principal Scientific Officer in 1990. In 1994 he returned to Chile as Professor of the Faculty of Medicine, at the Universidad de Chile and at the Centro de Estudios Científicos de Santiago. He has received the Presidential Chair in Science (Chile) 1996-1998, the University of Chile Rector's medal and an International Fellowship of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1997-2001). In March 2000, he moved to Valdivia, Chile, to join the new Centro de Estudios Científicos. His current work is aimed at understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of electrolyte and water transport and the regulation of cell volume. He has over 100 papers published in international scientific journals.

After earning his B.S., M.S., and PhD. from the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile, Francisco Bezanilla did his doctoral training from 1969-1971 at the Laboratory of Biophysics, NINCDS at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD as well as with the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester. Dr. Bezanilla began his career as an Instructor in Physics with the School of Medicine of Catholic University, Santiago and has since taught at the University of Rochester, the University of Chile, the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA, where he is currently a professor of Neuroscience. Dr. Bezanilla has been honored multiple times for his work in biophysics. He was the recipient of the Kenneth S. Cole Award in 1990, appointed as Appointed as Susumu Hagiwara Professor of Neuroscience in 1995, and was elected to the Latin American Academy of Sciences in 2002. He is a member of Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Valdivia, Chile, the Brain Research Institute and is a fellow of the Biophysical Society. His current work includes the biophysics of excitation, specifically the structure function in voltage dependent Ionic Channels. Dr. Bezanilla has over 100 papers published in international scientific journals.