Huxley, Andrew Fielding (1917-2012), was an English medical researcher who provided a detailed explanation of the transmission of nerve impulses. Huxley did most of his research in collaboration with Alan L. Hodgkin of England. The two scientists shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Sir John C. Eccles, an Australian scientist who also worked on nerve transmission.
Huxley and Hodgkin showed that the transmission of a nerve impulse is an electrical and chemical process controlled by the outer membrane of the nerve cell. The membrane selectively allows ions (electrically charged atoms) of potassium and sodium, which carry a positive charge, to enter and leave the cell. When the cell is at rest, potassium ions move easily through the membrane, but sodium ions do not. The protein molecules inside the cell have a negative charge. As a result, the interior of a resting nerve cell has a negative charge, but an accumulation of sodium ions outside the cell membrane creates a positive charge there. A stimulus applied to the cell causes the membrane’s pores to open and allow positively charged sodium ions to rush into the cell, reversing its charge. This sudden change of electrical charge makes up a nerve impulse. When the impulse has passed, potassium ions flow to the outside and the cell quickly returns to its normal negative charge.
Andrew Fielding Huxley was born in London on Nov. 22, 1917, into a distinguished family. He was the grandson of the famous zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley and the half-brother of the author Aldous Huxley and the biologist Sir Julian Huxley. Andrew Huxley studied natural sciences at Trinity College, part of Cambridge University. He graduated in 1938 and began research on the nervous system with Alan Hodgkin, who had been his tutor. From 1940 to 1945, during World War II, Huxley did research on gunnery. During the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, he held a series of positions at Cambridge, where he continued his research with Hodgkin. In 1960, he moved to University College, part of the University of London, where he became a professor of physiology (the study of bodily functions). Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 1974 and he became known as Sir Andrew Huxley. He returned to Cambridge in 1984 as master of Trinity College, a position he held until 1990. Huxley died on May 30, 2012.
