Francis O. Schmitt

Francis Otto Schmitt ( born November 23, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri, † October 3, 1995 in Weston, Massachusetts) was an American neurobiologist.

In the thirties and forties, he examined by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, the ultra-fine structure of the myelin sheath of peripheral nerves by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction and small-angle scattering. He isolated various connective tissue and muscle structures, including the paramyosin.

Schmitt received his doctorate in 1927 in physiology at Washington University. From 1941 he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge / Mass. At MIT, he established the " Department for Biology and Biological Engineering ." He was also the founder in 1962 of the " Neuroscience Research Program " ( NRP) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS ). With this foundation, the contribution of different disciplines ( anatomy, chemistry, electrophysiology, computer science, linguistics, molecular biology, physics ) should be (" Neurosciences " ) to support the new discipline of neuroscience.

In 1956 Albert Lasker Award for Schmitt the Basic Medical Research.