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.

References

External links

Sir Bernard Katz Biography
Nobel Foundation

* Sabbatini, R.M.E.

''Brain & Mind'', 2004.
Physiology Online, PhysiologyNews, Issue 52, Autumn 2003

König-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

Life and career

Research

See also

References

External links