Sir Bernard Katz,
FRS (; 26 March 1911 – 20 April 2003) was a German-born
British physician and
biophysicist, noted for his work on
nerve
A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons) in the peripheral nervous system.
A nerve transmits electrical impulses. It is the basic unit of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the e ...
physiology. He shared the
Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with
Julius Axelrod
Julius Axelrod (May 30, 1912 – December 29, 2004) was an American biochemist. He won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 along with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. The Nobel Committee honored him for his work on the re ...
and
Ulf von Euler. He was made a
Knight Bachelor in 1969.
Life and career
Katz was born in
Leipzig, Germany, to a Jewish family originally from Russia, the son of Eugenie (Rabinowitz) and Max Katz, a fur merchant.
He was educated at the Albert Gymnasium in that city from 1921 to 1929 and went on to study medicine at the
University of Leipzig. He graduated in 1934 and fled to Britain in February 1935.
Katz went to work at
University College London, initially under the tutelage of
Archibald Vivian Hill
Archibald Vivian Hill (26 September 1886 – 3 June 1977), known as A. V. Hill, was a British physiologist, one of the founders of the diverse disciplines of biophysics and operations research. He shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Me ...
. He finished his PhD in 1938 and won a
Carnegie Fellowship
The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...
to study with
John Carew Eccles at the Kanematsu Institute of
Sydney Medical School
The University of Sydney School of Medicine, also known as Sydney Medical School (SMS) is the graduate medical school of the University of Sydney. Established in 1856, it is the first medical school in Australia. In 2018, Sydney Medical School j ...
. During this time, both he and Eccles gave research lectures at the
University of Sydney. He obtained British nationality in 1941 and joined the
Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
in 1942. He spent the war in the Pacific as a
radar officer and in 1946 was invited back to UCL as an assistant director by
Hill. For three years until 1949, the Katz family lived with
Hill and his wife
Margaret
Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian.
Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...
in the top flat of their house in
Highgate.
Back in England he also worked with the 1963 Nobel prize winners
Alan Hodgkin and
Andrew Huxley. Katz was made a professor at UCL in 1952 and head of biophysics, he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1952.
He stayed as head of biophysics until 1978 when he became emeritus professor.
Katz married Marguerite Penly in 1945. He died in London on 20 April 2003, at the age of 92. His son Jonathan
is
Public Orator of The
University of Oxford.
Research
His research uncovered fundamental properties of
synapse
In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or to the target effector cell.
Synapses are essential to the transmission of nervous impulses from ...
s, the junctions across which nerve cells signal to each other and to other types of cells. By the 1950s, he was studying the biochemistry and action of
acetylcholine
Acetylcholine (ACh) is an organic chemical that functions in the brain and body of many types of animals (including humans) as a neurotransmitter. Its name is derived from its chemical structure: it is an ester of acetic acid and choline. Part ...
, a
signalling molecule found in synapses linking
motor neuron
A motor neuron (or motoneuron or efferent neuron) is a neuron whose cell body is located in the motor cortex, brainstem or the spinal cord, and whose axon (fiber) projects to the spinal cord or outside of the spinal cord to directly or indirectl ...
s to
muscle
Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...
s,
[The Release of Neural Transmitter Substances (The Sherrington Lectures X), Charles C Thomas Publisher, Springfield (Illinois) 1969, pp. 60] used to stimulate contraction. Katz won the Nobel for his discovery with
Paul Fatt that neurotransmitter release at synapses is "
quantal
In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...
", meaning that at any particular synapse, the amount of neurotransmitter released is never less than a certain amount, and if more is always an integral number times this amount. Scientists now understand that this circumstance arises because, prior to their release into the synaptic gap, transmitter molecules reside in like-sized subcellular packages known as
synaptic vesicles, released in a similar way to any other
vesicle
Vesicle may refer to:
; In cellular biology or chemistry
* Vesicle (biology and chemistry), a supramolecular assembly of lipid molecules, like a cell membrane
* Synaptic vesicle
; In human embryology
* Vesicle (embryology), bulge-like features o ...
during
exocytosis
Exocytosis () is a form of active transport and bulk transport in which a cell transports molecules (e.g., neurotransmitters and proteins) out of the cell ('' exo-'' + ''cytosis''). As an active transport mechanism, exocytosis requires the use o ...
.
Katz's work had immediate influence on the study of
organophosphate
In organic chemistry, organophosphates (also known as phosphate esters, or OPEs) are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure , a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered a ...
s and
organochlorines, the basis of new post-war study for
nerve agents and
pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...
s, as he determined that the complex enzyme cycle was easily disrupted.
See also
*
Chemical synapse
*
Quantile neurotransmitter release
*
End-plate potential
*
List of refugees
This is a list of prominent people who fled their native country, went into exile and found refuge in another country. The list follows the current legal concept of refugee only loosely. It also includes children of people who have fled. The peopl ...
*
Neuromuscular junction
A neuromuscular junction (or myoneural junction) is a chemical synapse between a motor neuron and a muscle fiber.
It allows the motor neuron to transmit a signal to the muscle fiber, causing muscle contraction.
Muscles require innervation to ...
References
External links
Sir Bernard Katz Biography Nobel Foundation
* Sabbatini, R.M.E.
''Brain & Mind'', 2004.
Physiology Online, PhysiologyNews, Issue 52, Autumn 2003König-Albert-Gymnasium Leipzig*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Katz, Bernard
1911 births
2003 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
British Nobel laureates
German Nobel laureates
British neuroscientists
German neuroscientists
Jewish neuroscientists
Jewish scientists
Physicians from Leipzig
Alumni of University College London
Academics of University College London
Recipients of the Copley Medal
Knights Bachelor
Fellows of the Royal Society
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom
Electrophysiologists
Neurophysiologists
The Journal of Physiology editors