Carlos Chagas Filho

Filho's main scientific contribution was centered on the study of the electroplaques of the "poraquê" or electric eel (Electrophorus electricus), actually a fresh water electric fish native to the Amazon. With his group, he made important and original advances in the elucidation of its anatomy and electrophysiology, cytochemistry, as well as its nervous control. He discovered the brain command structures which control electrical discharges. He discovered also that the electroplaques has two kinds of excitability, one which is direct, and another which is reflex via the nervous pathways. He studied also the effects of curare on the electroplaques, which are modified striated muscles and thus have synaptic transmission based on acetylcholine (curare is an antagonist of this neurotransmitter). Filho also isolated the ACh membrane receptor.

As an educator, Filho left an important influence on biomedical research in Brazil, through his many scientific disciples and colleagues at the Biophysics Institute, such as Aristides Azevedo Pacheco Leão. It was during the initial years of the Institute, also, that Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-), then a young researcher of Jewish descent who had to escape fascism, worked towards her important discoveries on neurotrophic factors, supported by Carlos Chagas Filho. She later received the Nobel Prize of Physiology and Medicine.

He published several books, including an autobiography, a biographical memoir about his father and more than 100 scientific papers.