Clay Margrave Armstrong (born 1934) is an American physiologist and a former student of

Andrew Fielding Huxley Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley (22 November 191730 May 2012) was an English physiologist and biophysicist. He was born into the prominent Huxley family. After leaving Westminster School in central London, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge on ...

. Armstrong received his MD from

Washington University School of Medicine Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) is the medical school of Washington University in St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1891, the School of Medicine has 1,260 students, 604 of which are pursuing a medical degree with or ...

in 1960. He is currently emeritus professor of Physiology at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. He has also held professorial appointments at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

. Armstrong was awarded the

Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers who have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemist ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1996, and the

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is one of the prizes awarded by the Lasker Foundation for a fundamental discovery that opens up a new area of biomedical science. The award frequently precedes a Nobel Prize in Medicine; almost 5 ...

(shared with

Bertil Hille Bertil Hille (born October 10, 1940) is an Emeritus Professor, and the Wayne E. Crill Endowed Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington. He is particularly well known for his pioneering research on ce ...

and Roderick MacKinnon) in 1999, for his seminal contributions to our understanding of the functions of ion channel proteins in nerve cells. Armstrong was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1987, and was elected as a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1999. He won the 2001 Gairdner Foundation International Award. Armstrong is married to noted scientist

Clara Franzini-Armstrong Clara Franzini-Armstrong (born 1938 Florence) is an Italian-born American electron microscopist, and Professor Emeritus of Cell and Developmental Biology at University of Pennsylvania. Early life Clara Franzini was born on October 3, 1938, in F ...

Ideas and influence

Much of the current understanding of ion channel structure and function can be attributed to the notion proposed by Clay Armstrong (with

). Armstrong provided the first general description of the K+

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 ...

pore, including the fundamental ideas of a selectivity filter that can allow the rapid flow of K+ while excluding the flow of Na+ across the

cell membrane The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane (PM) or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of all cells from the outside environment ( ...

; a wide inner vestibule; and a molecular gating element at the cytoplasmic side of the channel that controls the flow of ions through the pore. In addition, Armstrong's studies (with

Francisco Bezanilla Francisco Bezanilla is a Chilean-American scientist and professor at the University of Chicago. He is a past president of the Biophysical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Biography Raised in Santiago, Bezanilla took an earl ...

) that described the first measurement of charge movement associated with the activation of Na+-selective ion channels laid the groundwork for the current understanding of the molecular basis of electrical signaling in nerve and muscle cells. A consistent feature of Armstrong's contributions is the quantitative nature of his work, combined with clear and concise descriptions of the underlying mechanism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Clay American physiologists University of Pennsylvania faculty Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Living people 1934 births Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Electrophysiologists Members of the National Academy of Medicine