Henry Hallett Dale

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Hallett Dale, 1904
Henry Hallett Dale
Nobel Prize Certificate

Sir Henry Hallett Dale , OM , GBE (born June 9, 1875 in London , † July 23, 1968 in Cambridge ) was a British physiologist and biochemist . He and Otto Loewi received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses .

Life

Dale studied medicine (physiology and zoology) at Cambridge University from 1894 , was with Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt for four months in 1903 and then worked as a pharmacologist at University College London , where he met Otto Loewi in 1905 . From 1904 he was director of Wellcome's Physiological Research Laboratory in London. In 1909 he received his MD as a medical doctor at Cambridge. He also had his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. In 1914 he took on a managerial role (director of the Biochemistry and Pharmacology Department) at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Among other things, he worked on the pharmacological effects of ergot and alkaloids such as tyramine and histamine . In 1906 he discovered the hormone oxytocin in the pituitary gland . He found that it has an important role in the process of childbirth and breastfeeding.

Dale and colleagues isolated acetylcholine from mushrooms over many years and discovered the possible role as a neurotransmitter (around 1914), which Loewi then demonstrated. In 1921 Loewi found that when nerves in the frog's heart were stimulated , a chemical substance he called vagus substance was released, which Dale then identified as acetylcholine. This substance was also able to stimulate the heart directly, demonstrating the chemical transmission of nerve signals.

Dale's principle describes the hypothesis that each nerve cell only uses one neurotransmitter, which turned out to be wrong much later (instead, the principle of coexistence was propagated by Tomas Hökfelt ). The naming of the principle comes from John C. Eccles (1954), who referred to a lecture by Dale in 1934, but Dale himself never explicitly formulated this principle in his writings. In the 1940s he argued with Eccles over whether nerve signals are transmitted chemically (Dale) or electrically (Eccles) to the synapses. It was later realized that the transmission is mostly chemical, sometimes also electrical.

In 1914 he was elected as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which awarded him the Royal Medal in 1924 and the Copley Medal in 1937 . In 1932 he was promoted to Knight Bachelor . The British Crown awarded him the Order of Merit in 1944 . The American Diabetes Association awarded him the Banting Medal in 1954 , and the German Pharmacological Society honored him with the Schmiedeberg plaque in 1962 . Dale was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1927. From 1932 he was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , from 1936 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , from 1939 of the American Philosophical Society and from 1940 of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1943 he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire .

Dale was director of the National Institute for Medical Research from 1928 to 1942 .

The moon crater Dale is named after him. His brother Benjamin Dale was a composer. Dale had been married since 1904 and had a son and two daughters.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Dale: A Wellcome man
  2. ↑ Member entry of Sir Henry Hallett Dale at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.
  3. ^ Member History: Henry H. Dale. American Philosophical Society, accessed July 4, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Henry Hallett Dale  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Dale, Henry Hallett
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1968
Place of death Cambridge