Julio Noel González Jiménez

Pioneer of organ transplantation in Cuba and leader of the team that performed the first heart transplant in the country. Specialist of II degree in General Surgery (1967), Specialist of II degree in Cardiovascular Surgery (1987), Professor and Senior Researcher, Doctor in Medical Sciences (1981), Doctor in Sciences (2006), Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba and the Cuban Society of History of Medicine. Member of the Cuban Society of Cardiology. Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the International Society for Heart Lung Transplantation (ISHLT).

He was born in the municipality of Santo Domingo, belonging to the province of Villa Clara. It is said that the young man from Villa Clara thought he would study engineering, but when he climbed the university steps his friend Pepín Naranjo convinced him to enroll in medicine. Fortunately he did.

He graduated from that career in 1954 and specialized in Cardiovascular Surgery in 1957 at the University of Minneapolis. There he met eminent professionals, such as South African surgeon Christian Barnard, author of the first heart transplant in the world. It was the initial phase of open cardiac surgery with extracorporeal circulation.

Upon his return to Cuba he began to practice this specialty more actively as a collaborator of teams that performed it with some frequency and in 1960, he was promoted to Full Professor of Surgery.

When the Revolution triumphed, Dr. González was assigned to organize the services of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, a mission he fulfilled while serving as director of Hospital Manuel Fajardo, a position entrusted to him in 1961. Just five years later Noel began the implantation of pacemakers together with surgeons Julio Taín and Felipe Rodiles, something that is quite common today but was then a revolutionary technique.

Between 1964 and 1968, he implanted pacemakers in 54 patients and by 1971 had reached one hundred beneficiaries of that technique.

In early 1969, he performed the first permanent pacemaker implant via endocavitary route (using the external jugular vein dissection method), which simplified the procedure, avoiding thoracotomy and the use of general anesthesia.

As a transformer, in 1969 he performed the first experimental orthotopic transplant in dogs in Cuba. Noel had set himself an objective and he would achieve it. His acquaintance Barnard had already performed the first orthotopic heart transplant in a human in South Africa. The Cuban scientist had confidence in the potential of the health system on the island and in the development of the different disciplines essential for a successful transplant.

He had to wait almost 20 years. When the technological and scientific development conditions already existed at the Teaching Clinical Surgical Hospital "Hermanos Ameijeiras", at dawn on December 9, 1985, Noel was notified that a heart had just appeared with compatible characteristics to transplant it into Jorge Hernández Ocaña, a 38-year-old man with a serious cardiovascular condition. That successful operation was the first of its kind performed in the entire third world. The news spread around the planet.

Professor Noel González personally performed the first six heart transplants, and the first heart-lung transplant, accomplished on December 26, 1986.

He later ceded his position to his disciples, but has been present in 50 percent of the interventions of those characteristics accomplished in Cuba and in numerous ones carried out in other countries.

A revolutionary by birth, Dr. González is committed to applying in humans a vascular endothelium growth factor, capable of regenerating damaged parts of the heart, already proven successfully in animals. "Perhaps in time one could begin to inject the vascular endothelium growth factor (superficial tissue inside blood vessels)... into the hearts of people who have a damaged area," said Dr. González who has directed a group composed of specialists from the "Hermanos Ameijeiras" hospital and the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). The CIGB researchers isolated the vascular endothelium growth factor and tested its effectiveness over a long time by injecting it into animals.

In González's opinion this factor is capable of "developing blood vessels to nourish those that atherosclerosis has damaged and promoting the repair of cardiac injury". He indicated that another group of researchers is working using this growth factor "to regenerate the blood vessels that nourish parts of the body (arms and legs) that would otherwise have to be amputated.

Gene therapy can also be very useful for the treatment of other diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, among another 22 genetic conditions susceptible to being benefited by this technique."

Professor Noel has undoubtedly been a genuine example as a professional and revolutionary who should serve as a model for new generations of specialists.

The González family were associated with theater in the Villa Clara municipality of Santo Domingo. They were the lessees of the Doménech hall since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1956, upon the death of his father, a González, named Noel, assumed the direction of the business that belonged to him along with his nephews.

Three years later he and the other owners ceded the theater to their employees so they could form a film cooperative. They named it Pedro Julio Marcelo in honor of a young man who sympathized with the bearded rebels, killed in the taking of the municipality by the rebels. History records this act of selflessness, of a Cuban family that with economic means acted altruistically in service of the community. There were other examples.

Professor Noel González died in Havana on January 17, 2016.