Andrew Fielding Huxley 1917 - 2012

Sir Andrew Huxley (1917-2012) pioneered the physiology and biophysics of nerve conduction, skeletal muscle activation and tension generation. His ground-breaking work on nerve excitability of nerve in collaboration with Alan Hodgkin in the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory and the Plymouth Marine Biological Laboratory provided the basis for our understanding of how voltage-gated ion channels generate propagating action potentials and led to award of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with Alan Hodgkin and Jack Eccles. Huxley then went on to perform seminal work of similar importance on muscle activation and contraction whilst at University College London. This led to the sliding filament theory and cross-bridge hypothesis of muscle contraction, completing a momentous quest within physiology, in his view, “the mechanical engineering of living things”.