THE INDEPENDENT OBITUARIES Saturday 26 April 2003 * 19

Professor Sir Bernard Katz Biophysicist who arrived in England with £4 and went on to win a Nobel Prize

BERNARD KATZ was an icon of graduate work, and for this work he war. A month after the wedding he small packets (quanta), each of Although his seriousness could post-war . He was one of was awarded the Siegfried Garten got a telegram from A.V. Hill which produces a very brief signal in make him appear forbidding, and the last of the generation of prize. This was in 1933, the year inviting him to return to UCL as the muscle fibre. presenting to him the first draft of a distinguished physiologists who were Hitler came to power, and Henry Head Fellow of the Royal His last major works, published in paper could be a "baptism of fire", it refugees from the Third Reich and Gildermeister was forced to Society and assistant director of the 1970s, gave the first insight into was the universal experience of his who contributed immeasurably to the announce publicly that the prize research in biophysics. In 1952 he how a single behaved, colleagues that he was a person with scientific reputation of their adopted could not be given to a "non-Aryan" succeeded Hill as Professor of and paved the way for Bert enormous enthusiasm, always willing country. In 1970 he won the Nobel student, though he later gave Katz Biophysics at UCL, and he headed a Sakmann, who was at UCL with to discuss with the most junior of Prize in Physiology and . the prize money in private. At some department of outstanding distinction Katz in the early 1970s, to record them the details of their work and to He was born and brought up in risk, Katz decided to complete his until 1978. from one single channel -work, done offer advice. There can be few in the Leipzig, though he was never a Ger- medical degree in Leipzig, but not His work at UCL was concerned with , that also got a field of synaptic transmission and ion man citizen. His father, Max, was a long after graduating he set off for largely with the way in which a Nobel Prize in 1991. channels who have not benefited fur merchant who had left Russia in England, carrying his League of nerve impulse is transmitted from a At UCL all the important features from his wisdom. 1904, and met his wife, Eugenie Nations stateless-persons pass, a nerve fibre to a muscle fibre, as of synaptic transmission were Although Katz spoke little English Rabinowitz, who was of Polish letter of recommendation from occurs each time the brain "tells" a established, and subsequently many when he first arrived at UCL, his origin, in Germany. Until he was six, Martin Gildermeister and £4. muscle to contract. The work of of these principles have been found writing style was exemplary, and he Katz was a citizen of Tsarist Russia, His destination was the laboratory Henry Dale and others had led to to be true in the brain too. The was able and willing to correct the but then, because of the Russian of A V. Hill at University College acceptance of the idea of "chemical influence of his work is inestimable, execrable style adopted by some na- Revolution, became stateless, and London. Hill was a remarkable man, communication". This means that not only in physiology, but also in tive speakers of English. His prose remained so until he was 30 when he not only a great scientist (he had there is not a direct connection , in which he (and his was simple, straightforward and became a naturalised British citizen. received the Nobel prize, with Otto between the nerve fibre and the fellow refugee at UCL Heinz Schild) unpretentious, yet his papers show In Leipzig, Katz was brought up Meyerhof, in 1922), but also a muscle fibre, but when a nerve laid down some of the most astonishing prescience. He had an in what he himself described as a statesman who took a large role in impulse reaches the end of a nerve it important fundamental principles. He uncanny knack for picking the im- "completely 'unorthodox' and liberal helping refugees in the pre-war releases a chemical, acetylcholine, was rewarded, among many other portant part of a problem, and to way", but nevertheless had his first period. Katz described these first which diffuses across the very honours, by election to the Royal leave the rest of us dotting "i"s and experience of being an alien Jew in years in Hill's lab, between 1935 and narrow gap between the nerve ending Society in 1952 and, 18 years later, crossing "t"s. Every new entrant into 1920, at the age of nine, when he was 1939, as "the most inspiring period of and the muscle fibre, and combines by the Nobel Prize, jointly with Ulf the field should read his work from refused entrance to the SchiIler Real- my life", and said, "Hill's personality with protein molecules (receptors) in von Euler (of Sweden) and Julius beginning to end. . Gymnasium, and consequently had a had a profound influence on me." the muscle-fibre membrane. Axelrod (of the United States), "for DAVID COLQUHOUN classical education at the König Shortly after getting his PhD, and a Katz, with Paul Fatt, established their discoveries concerning the Albert Gymnasium. There he chose month before the start of the Second that these receptors, when stimulated humoral transmitters in the nerve Bernard Katz, biophysicist: born to learn Latin and Greek rather than World War, he left UCL for by acetylcholine, open "aqueous terminals and the mechanism for Leipzig, Germany 26 March 1911; the more mathematical option Australia, where he worked with pores" in the muscle membrane that their storage, release and Henry Head Fellow of the Royal (because, he said, it gave him more John Eccles, another renowned allow an electrical current (carried by inactivation". Society and Assistant Director of time to play chess in the cafes of physiologist of the time. sodium and other ions) to flow into Surprisingly, BK -as he was Research, Biophysics Research Unit, Leipzig), though he acquired a good Katz remained in Australia from the cell. It is this current that known among his scientific University College London 1946-50, level of mathematics anyway. 1939 to 1945, and in 1941 became a eventually causes the muscle to colleagues -himself supervised only Reader in Physiology 1950-51, Head Despite his love of chess, and naturalised British citizen, so obtain- contract. The receptor proteins of five* PhD students, John Nichols, of the Biophysics Department 1952- despite increasingly menacing anti- ing his first real passport. Soon after, this sort, which were later to be Liam Burke,Paul Fatt, Bob Martin 78, Professor 1952-78 (Emeritus), Semitic experiences, he did well at he enlisted with the Royal Australian called "ion channels", are the basis of and Donald Jenkinson, all of whom Honorary Research Fellow 1978- school and went to the University of Air Force, and served as a radar all nervous activity and of much else went on to do eminent work. But his 2003; FRS 1952; Kt 1969; Nobel Leipzigin 1929 to study medicine. officer in New Guinea. Later he met besides. Together with Ricardo department became a Mecca for Prize in Physiology and Medicine After his preclinical exams he Marguerite Penly, known as Rita, Miledi and others, Katz established postdoctoral students from all over (jointly with Ulf van Euler and Julius combined part-time_research (under who, incidentally, was not Jewish. that acetylcholine is not released in a the world. His influence on the Axelrod) 1970; married 1945 Martin Gildermeister) with his under They were married straight after the continuous stream, but comes in training of a large number of the Marguerite Penly (died 1999; two world's greatest scientists was huge. sons); died Londan 20 April 2003. Katz: work on transmission of nerve impulses Godfrey Argent

*correction to printed version