5.2 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alan Hodgkin | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hodgkin | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:53:40.084889+00:00 | kb-cron |
The cell membrane depolarisation sequence where a small depolarization leads to an increase in sodium permeability, which leads to influx of sodium ions, which in turn depolarizes the membrane even more is now known as the Hodgkin cycle. In addition, Hodgkin and Huxley's findings led them to hypothesize the existence of ion channels on cell membranes, which were confirmed only decades later. Confirmation of ion channels came with the development of the patch clamp leading to a Nobel prize in 1991 for Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann, and in 2003 for Roderick MacKinnon. After establishing ion movements across a selectively permeable cell membrane as the mechanism of the action potential, Hodgkin turned his attention to how the ionic interchange that occurs during the action potential could be reversed afterwards. Together with Richard Keynes he demonstrated that in addition to the changes in permeability that lead to an action potential, there is a secretory mechanism that ejects sodium and absorbs potassium against the electrochemical gradients. A few years later, the Danish scientist Jens Christian Skou discovered the enzyme Na+/K+-ATPase that uses ATP to export three sodium ions in exchange for two potassium ions that are imported, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. Hodgkin was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953 by Lord Adrian. In October 1961, he was told by Swedish journalists that he, Huxley, and Eccles had been awarded the Nobel Prize. This turned out to be a false alarm, however, when shortly thereafter it was announced that the 1961 Prize was awarded to Georg von Békésy. It was only two years later that Hodgkin, Huxley, and Eccles were finally awarded the Prize "for their discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane". During the Nobel Banquet on 10 December 1963, Hodgkin gave the traditional speech on behalf of the three neurophysiologists, thanking the king and the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine for the award. Incidentally, Hodgkin and his wife attended the Nobel Prize ceremony a second time, three years later, when Hodgkin's father-in-law, Francis Peyton Rous, was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
== Later career and administrative positions == From 1951 to 1969, Hodgkin was the Foulerton Professor of the Royal Society at Cambridge. In 1970 he became the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Biophysics at Cambridge. Around this time he also ended his experiments on nerve at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and switched his focus to visual research which he could do in Cambridge with the help of others while serving as president of the Royal Society. Together with Denis Baylor and Peter Detwiler he published a series of papers on turtle photoreceptors. From 1970 to 1975 Hodgkin served as the 53rd president of the Royal Society (PRS). During his tenure as PRS, he was knighted in 1972 and admitted into the Order of Merit in 1973. From 1978 to 1985 he was the 34th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He served on the Royal Society Council from 1958 to 1960 and on the Medical Research Council from 1959 to 1963. He was foreign secretary of the Physiological Society from 1961 to 1967. He also held additional administrative posts such as Chancellor, University of Leicester, from 1971 to 1984
=== Awards and honours === 1988 – W.H. Helmerich III Award of the Retina Research Foundation 1983 – Lord Crook Medal of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers 1982 – F.O. Schmitt Medal and Award 1983 1977 – Hon. DSc, University of Oxford 1975 – Hon. Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences 1974 – Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences of the USA 1973 – Order of Merit (O.M.) 1973 – Foreign Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Medical Sciences, VIII Class) 1972 – Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.) 1972 – Hon. Fellow, Indian National Science Academy 1970 – President of the Royal Society (PRS) 1968 – Member, Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1968 – Foreign Member, American Philosophical Society 1966 – President of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1965 – Copley Medal of the Royal Society 1964 – Foreign Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters 1964 – Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 1963 – Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine together with Andrew Fielding Huxley and John Carew Eccles (for their research on synapses) 1962 – Foreign Hon. Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1958 – Royal Medal of The Royal Society 1958 – Hon. MD, University of Louvain 1956 – Hon. MD, University of Berne 1955 – Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians 1948 – Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) A portrait of Hodgkin by Michael Noakes hangs in Trinity College's collection.
=== Publications === The Conduction of the Nervous Impulse (1964) Chance and Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War (1992)