Gregorio Baro


Gregorio Baró was an Argentine scientist born in Santiago Temple, Córdoba on June 19, 1928 and died in Buenos Aires on May 28, 2012.

Biography

The son of Spanish immigrants from the Province of León, more precisely from Cabreros del Río, Baró married the writer María Dhialma Tiberti. He completed his Associate of Science in Chemistry degree at the Otto Krause Technical School in Buenos Aires, in 1945. Afterward, he pursued his studies at Universidad de Buenos Aires from which he obtained a Bachelor of Science, followed by a PhD in Chemistry with a dissertation entitled Estado químico del arsénico formado por transformaciones nucleares en compuestos inorgánicos de germanio, selenio, bromo, y arsénico under the direction of Professor Adrian Aten of the Instituut voor Kernphysisch Onderzoek, in Amsterdam, Netherlands and with a full scholarship from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council. Moreover, between 1955 and 1960 he continued with postdoctoral research in nuclear energy under the supervision of Professor Walter Seelmann-Eggebert, a German radiochemist who worked together with Nobel Prize winner Otto Hahn, at Balseiro Institute and at the Bariloche Atomic Centre, in San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro province, Argentina; and, in 1968, in the use of nuclear reactors for research and production of radioisotopes in Bombay, India, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Because of his outstanding scientific work, he was named Emeritus Researcher of the National Atomic Energy Commission, an institution for which he worked over 40 years, reaching the highest rank as Director. Furthermore, the Higher University of San Andres, Bolivia awarded him a Doctor honoris causa in Radiochemistry. Among his mayor achievements, perhaps the most transcendent during his active life was the discovery of new isotopes of ruthenium, rhodium, rhenium, tungsten, and osmium;. and during his retirement, the development of a contrast agent for Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Endowed with a conciliatory character and always proactive and optimistic, at National Atomic Energy Commission, Baró had various jobs, particularly Director of Radioisotopes and Radiations. For 42 years, he worked with prestigious scientists, all Argentine radiochemistry pioneers such as Sara Abecasis, Juan Flegenheimer, Jaime Pahissa-Campá, María Cristina Palcos, Enzo Ricci, Renato Radicella, Plinio Rey, Josefina Rodríguez, and Maela Viirsoo, and he also interacted with scientists of other fields, such as Ernesto Sabato and César Milstein. He was the representative in Argentina of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry for several years. In addition, he served as consultant for the Comisión de Energía Atómica de Bolivia, the Comisión Chilena de Energía Nuclear, the Instituto de Asuntos Nucleares de Colombia, the International Atomic Energy Agency in a project in Asunción, Paraguay, the Centro Atómico del Perú, and the government of Uruguay.
Baró was a scientific consultant for BACON SAIC and for NOLDOR SRL, and President of the Board of the state company Córboba Alta Tecnología SE, as well as a funding member and a member of the Tribunal de Honor of the Asociación Argentina de Tecnología Nuclear.
In addition to his professional experience, Dr. Baró was professor at several universities, such as Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, and Universidad Nacional del Litoral. He delivered advanced courses on the use of radioisotopes at the Asociación Médica de Bahía Blanca, the Asociación de Medicina y Biología Nuclear Argentina, and the Ministerio de Bienestar Social de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. He served as external evaluator for the Comisión Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación Universitaria, and a jury member for various contests for faculty positions and a jury member for the awarding of the Dr. Martín B. Crespi prize of the Sociedad Argentina de Radio-Farmacia.
Gregorio Baró was a member of the Asociación Física Argentina, the American Nuclear Society, the Asociación Argentina de Medicina y Biología Nuclear, and the Asociación Argentina de Tecnología Nuclear; as well as Editor for Argentina Nuclear and the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, two influential academic publications.
He participated, presenting a paper, in more than 30 different conferences in Argentina and abroad, he made over 20 scientific visits to several countries, including the United States of America, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and published over 80 scientific papers in journals throughout the world.

Publications