William Albert Catterall (born 12 October 1946 in Providence, Rhode Island) is an American pharmacologist and

neurobiologist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial c ...

, who researches

ion channel Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of io ...

s. He currently serves as a professor of pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington and is known for the discovery of the sodium and calcium

voltage-gated ion channels Voltage-gated ion channels are a class of transmembrane proteins that form ion channels that are activated by changes in the electrical membrane potential near the channel. The membrane potential alters the conformation of the channel proteins, ...

. Catterall received his B.A. in chemistry from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1968 and his Ph.D. in physiological chemistry from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972. He did his postdoctoral training in neurobiology and molecular pharmacology as a Muscular Dystrophy Association Fellow with Marshall Nirenberg at the NIH from 1972 to 1974. After three years as a staff scientist at the NIH, Catterall joined the University of Washington in 1977 as an associate professor of pharmacology. He earned full professorship in 1981 and served as chair of the University of Washington's pharmacology department from 1984 to 2016.

Honors and awards

Catterall has been a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

since 2010. In 2003, he received the 16th annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research, in recognition of his pioneering research into sodium and calcium channel proteins. In 2008, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Catterall was awarded the Canada International Gairdner Award in 2010. * I. & H. Wachter Award, I. & H. Wachter Foundation (2010) * Bard Lecture, Johns Hopkins University (2010)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Catterall, William Albert 1946 births American neuroscientists American pharmacologists University of Washington faculty Living people Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Foreign Members of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni Brown University alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine