Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley, OM,
FRSThe 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...
(born 22 November 1917,
HampsteadHampstead is an area of London, England, located north-west of Charing Cross. It is located within Inner London. It is part of the London Borough of Camden. It is known for its intellectual, artistic, musical and literary associations and for the large and hilly parkland Hampstead Heath...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
) is an
EnglishEngland 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...
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...
for his work with
Alan Lloyd HodgkinSir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, OM, KBE, FRS was a British physiologist and biophysicist, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.-Early life:...
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 that 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 research on synapses. Hodgkin and Huxley's findings led the pair to hypothesize the existence of
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 isolated only decades later. Together with the Swiss physiologist Robert Stämpfli he evidenced the existence of
saltatory conductionSaltatory conduction is the propagation of action potentials along myelinated axons from one node of Ranvier to the next node, increasing the conduction velocity of action potentials without needing to increase the diameter of an axon.-Mechanism:Because the cytoplasm of the axon is electrically...
in
myelinMyelin is a dielectric material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath, usually around only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system...
ated nerve fibres.
Huxley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London on 17 March 1955. He was knighted by
Queen Elizabeth IIElizabeth II is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known informally as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,...
on 12 November 1974. Sir Andrew was then appointed to the Order of Merit on 11 November 1983.
Family
Huxley is a youngest son of the
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and
editorEditing is the process of selecting and preparing language, images, sound, video, or film through processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications in various media...
Leonard HuxleyLeonard Huxley was a British schoolteacher, writer and editor.- Family :His father was the zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley, 'Darwin's bulldog'. Leonard was educated at University College School, London, St. Andrews University, and Balliol College, Oxford. He first married Julia Arnold, daughter of...
by his second wife Rosalind Bruce, and hence half-brother of the
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
Aldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963...
and fellow
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
Julian HuxleySir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
and grandson of the biologist T. H. Huxley. In 1947 he married Jocelyn Richenda Gammell Pease (1925-2003), the daughter of the geneticist Michael Pease and his wife Helen Bowen Wedgwood, the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, and is thus affiliated with the Darwin-Wedgwood family. They have one son and five daughters:
- Janet Rachel Huxley (born 20 April 1948)
- Stewart Leonard Huxley (born 19 December 1949)
- Camilla Rosalind Huxley (born 12 March 1952)
- Eleanor Bruce Huxley (born 21 February 1959)
- Henrietta Catherine Huxley (born 25 December 1960)
- Clare Marjory Pease Huxley (born 4 November 1962)
Family tree
Nobel Prize
The experimental measurements on which the pair based their action potential theory represent 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 the
Atlantic squidLoliginidae is an aquatic family of the order Teuthida .-Species:*Genus Loligo**Veined Squid, Loligo forbesii**Siboga Squid, Loligo pickfordi**Loligo vietnamensis**Spear Squid, Loligo bleekeri...
(
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...
. The pair published their theory in 1952. In the paper, they describe
one of the earliest computational models in biochemistry, that is the basis of most of the models used in Neurobiology during the following four decades. He continued to hold college and university posts in Cambridge until 1960, when he became head of the Department of Physiology at
University College LondonUniversity College London is a British university institution and a constituent college of the University of London, based primarily in Bloomsbury, London...
. For his research, in 1963 he was awarded 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...
. In 1969 he was appointed to a
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...
Research Professorship which he holds in the Department of Physiology at
University College LondonUniversity College London is a British university institution and a constituent college of the University of London, based primarily in Bloomsbury, London...
.
He currently maintains his position as a
fellowA fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes...
at
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 ....
, teaching in
physiologyPhysiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology...
, natural sciences and
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
.
Sir Andrew is inarguably one of the greatest mathematical biologists of the 20th Century. From his experimental work with Hodgkin, he developed a set of differential equations that provided a mathematical explanation for nerve impulses -- the "action potential". This work provided the foundation for the all of the current work on voltage-sensitive membrane channels, which are responsible for the functioning of animal nervous systems. Quite separately, he developed the mathematical equations for the operation of myosin "cross-bridges" that generate the sliding forces between actin and myosin filaments, which cause the contraction of skeletal muscles. These equations presented an entirely new paradigm for understanding
muscle contractionMuscle fiber generates tension through the action of actin and myosin cross-bridge cycling. While under tension, the muscle may lengthen, shorten or remain the same...
, which has been extended to provide our understanding of almost all of the movements produced by cells above the level of bacteria.
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