Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin,
OMThe Order of Merit
is an order recognizing distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
,
KBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
, FRS (5 February 1914,
BanburyBanbury is a market town and civil parish in the district of Cherwell in northern Oxfordshire, England, located on the River Cherwell. It lies northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...
,
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
– 20 December 1998
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
physiologistPhysiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology...
and
biophysicistBiophysics is an interdisciplinary science that employs and develops theories and methods of the physical sciences for the investigation of biological systems . Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms...
, who won the 1963
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
.
Hodgkin was educated at The Downs School (Malvern),
Gresham's SchoolGresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school at Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...
,
HoltHolt is a market town and parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town is on the route of the A148 King's Lynn to Cromer road. The nearest railway station is in the town of Sheringham where access to the...
, and
Trinity College, CambridgeTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 160 Fellows ....
.
In 1930, he was the winner of a bronze medal in the Public Schools Essay Competition organized by the
Royal Society for the Protection of BirdsThe Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is a British charitable organisation which works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment through public awareness campaigns, petitions and through the operation of nature reserves throughout the United Kingdom...
.
During the Second World War, he volunteered to work on
AviationAviation is the activity involving man-made air-borne flying devices , including the people, organizations, and regulatory bodies involved with them.- History :...
Medicine at
FarnboroughThe Royal Aircraft Establishment England, was a British research establishment latterly under the UK Ministry of Defence .The first site was at Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire to which was added a second site RAE Bedford in 1946.The Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment was incorporated...
and was subsequently transferred to the
Telecommunications Research EstablishmentThe Telecommunications Research Establishment was established in Worth Matravers, which is four miles to the west of Swanage, UK, in May 1940, as the central research group for RAF applications of radar...
(TRE) where he worked on the development of centimetric
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
, including the design of the
Village InnThe British Automatic Gun-Laying Turret was a radar-aimed FN50 turret fitted to some Lancaster and Halifax bombers in 1944. The AGLT system was devised to allow a target to be tracked and fired-on in total darkness, the target's range being accurately computed as well as allowing for lead and...
airborne gun-laying system.
With Andrew Fielding Huxley, Hodgkin worked on experimental measurements and developed an action potential theory representing one of the earliest applications of a technique of
electrophysiologyElectrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart...
, known as the "
voltage clampThe voltage clamp is used by electrophysiologists to measure the ion currents across a neuronal membrane while holding the membrane voltage at a set level. Neuronal membranes contain many different kinds of ion channels, some of which are voltage gated...
".
Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin,
OMThe Order of Merit
is an order recognizing distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
,
KBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
, FRS (5 February 1914,
BanburyBanbury is a market town and civil parish in the district of Cherwell in northern Oxfordshire, England, located on the River Cherwell. It lies northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...
,
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
– 20 December 1998
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
physiologistPhysiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology...
and
biophysicistBiophysics is an interdisciplinary science that employs and develops theories and methods of the physical sciences for the investigation of biological systems . Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms...
, who won the 1963
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
.
Early life
Hodgkin was educated at The Downs School (Malvern),
Gresham's SchoolGresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school at Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...
,
HoltHolt is a market town and parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town is on the route of the A148 King's Lynn to Cromer road. The nearest railway station is in the town of Sheringham where access to the...
, and
Trinity College, CambridgeTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 160 Fellows ....
.
In 1930, he was the winner of a bronze medal in the Public Schools Essay Competition organized by the
Royal Society for the Protection of BirdsThe Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is a British charitable organisation which works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment through public awareness campaigns, petitions and through the operation of nature reserves throughout the United Kingdom...
.
Career
During the Second World War, he volunteered to work on
AviationAviation is the activity involving man-made air-borne flying devices , including the people, organizations, and regulatory bodies involved with them.- History :...
Medicine at
FarnboroughThe Royal Aircraft Establishment England, was a British research establishment latterly under the UK Ministry of Defence .The first site was at Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire to which was added a second site RAE Bedford in 1946.The Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment was incorporated...
and was subsequently transferred to the
Telecommunications Research EstablishmentThe Telecommunications Research Establishment was established in Worth Matravers, which is four miles to the west of Swanage, UK, in May 1940, as the central research group for RAF applications of radar...
(TRE) where he worked on the development of centimetric
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
, including the design of the
Village InnThe British Automatic Gun-Laying Turret was a radar-aimed FN50 turret fitted to some Lancaster and Halifax bombers in 1944. The AGLT system was devised to allow a target to be tracked and fired-on in total darkness, the target's range being accurately computed as well as allowing for lead and...
airborne gun-laying system.
With Andrew Fielding Huxley, Hodgkin worked on experimental measurements and developed an action potential theory representing one of the earliest applications of a technique of
electrophysiologyElectrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart...
, known as the "
voltage clampThe voltage clamp is used by electrophysiologists to measure the ion currents across a neuronal membrane while holding the membrane voltage at a set level. Neuronal membranes contain many different kinds of ion channels, some of which are voltage gated...
". The second critical element of their research was the so-called
giant axonThe squid giant axon is the very large axon that controls part of the water jet propulsion system in squid. It was discovered by English zoologist and neurophysiologist John Zachary Young in 1936...
of
Atlantic squidAtlantic squid can refer to:* Loligo pealei, the common Atlantic squid* Loligo sanpaulensis, the south-western Atlantic squid* Loligo forbesi, the eastern Atlantic squid...
(
Loligo pealei), which enabled them to record ionic currents as they would not have been able to do in almost any other
neuronA neuron is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signaling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves...
, such cells being too small to study by the techniques of the time. The experiments took place at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
beginning in 1935 with
frogFrogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by long hind legs, a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
sciatic nerveThe sciatic nerve is a large nerve in humans and other animals. It begins in the lower back and runs through the buttock and down the lower limb. It is the longest and widest single nerve in the human body....
and continuing into the 1940s, after interruption by
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Hodgkin and Huxley published their theory in 1952.
In 1963, with Huxley, he won the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
for their work on the basis of nerve "
action potentialAn action potential is a transient alteration of the transmembrane voltage across an excitable membrane generated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels embedded in the membrane. Action potentials play multiple roles in several types of excitable cells such as neurons, myocytes, and...
s," the electrical impulses which enable the activity of an organism to be coordinated by a
central nervous systemThe central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that functions to coordinate the activity of all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all animals more advanced than sponges or jellyfish. In vertebrates, the central nervous system is enclosed in the meninges. It contains...
. Hodgkin and Huxley shared the prize that year with
John Carew EcclesSir John Carew Eccles, AC FRS FRACP FRSNZ FAAS was an Australian neurophysiologist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse. He shared the prize together with Andrew Fielding Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin.- Biography :Eccles was born in Melbourne, Australia...
, who was cited for his research on synapses. Hodgkin and Huxley's findings led them to hypothesize
ion channelIon channels are pore-forming proteins that help establish and control the small voltage gradient across the plasma membrane of all living cells by allowing the flow of ions down their electrochemical gradient. They are present in the membranes that surround all biological cells...
s, which were confirmed only decades later. Confirmation of ion channels came with the development of the
patch clampThe patch clamp technique is a laboratory technique in electrophysiology that allows the study of single or multiple ion channels in cells. The technique can be applied to a wide variety of cells, but is especially useful in the study of excitable cells such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, muscle...
, which led to a Nobel prize in 1991 for
Erwin NeherErwin Neher is a German biophysicist.Erwin Neher studied physics at the Technical University of Munich from 1963 to 1966. In 1966, He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the US...
and
Bert SakmannBert Sakmann is a German cell physiologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Erwin Neher in 1991 for their work on "the function of single ion channels in cells," and invention of the patch clamp...
.
From 1971 to 1984, Hodgkin was Chancellor of
University of LeicesterThe University of Leicester is a research led university based in Leicester, England, with approximately 20,000 registered students - about 13,000 of them full-time students and 7,000 part-time and/or distance learning...
.
From 1978 to 1984, Hodgkin was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Creator of the
Hodgkin CycleThe Hodgkin cycle represents a positive feedback loop in which an initial membrane depolarization leads to uncontrolled deflection of the membrane potential to near VNa. The initial depolarization must reach or surpass threshold in order to activate voltage-gated Na+ channels. Opening of...
.
Honours
Hodgkin was knighted in 1972 and appointed to the
Order of MeritThe Order of Merit
is an order recognizing distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
in 1973. From 1970 to 1975 he was
PresidentThe President of the Royal Society is the elected head of the Royal Society of London. The position is now awarded to a member of the scientific community of the British Commonwealth for a period of five years, and is one of the highest honours that can be bestowed upon a scientist..The changeover...
of the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
.