Bernard Katz biography
Date of birth : 1911-03-26
Date of death : 2003-04-20
Birthplace : Leipzig, Germany
Nationality : German
Category : Science and Technology
Last modified : 2011-12-20
Credited as : scientist, Neurotransmitters and the pineal gland, Nobel laureate
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Bernard Katz spent decades studying nerves, muscles, and neuromuscular transmission. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, for his research into the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which conducts impulses from nerves to muscles. Katz's Nobel honors were shared with Julius Axelrod and Ulf von Euler.
He fled Nazi Germany on a League of Nations stateless-persons pass in 1935, and served in World War II as a radar technician in Australia's Air Force. In his early career, Katz studied under Nobel laureates Archibald V. Hill and John Eccles. In his later years he investigated the biochemistry of the pineal gland, focusing on the production of melatonin.
Katz's work had immediate influence on the study of organophosphates and organochlorines, the basis of new post-war study for nerve agents and pesticides, as he determined that the complex enzyme cycle was easily disrupted.
Author of books:
-Electric Excitation of Nerve (1939)
-Nerve, Muscle and Synapse (1966)
-The Release of Neural Transmitter Substances (1969)
-Calcium, Neuronal Function and Transmitter Release (1986, with Rami Rahamimoff)
