Winner of Nobel Prize for cell work dies

Andrew Huxley in 1963.

CAMBRIDGE, England, June 6 (UPI) -- Andrew Huxley, who shared a 1963 Nobel Prize for his discoveries involving how nerve impulses are transmitted through cells, has died in Britain.

His death May 30 was announced by the University of Cambridge, where he served as master of Trinity College from 1984 to 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Huxley, who died at age 94, shared the 1963 prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how nerves generate the electrical impulses that control muscle activities.

2000 Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel said the discovery "did for the cell biology of neurons what the structure of DNA did for the rest of biology."

Working with fellow Nobel laureate Alan Hodgkin, Huxley concluded current was carried by electrically charged atoms called ions, and when the current reached a cell it caused a channel known as a sodium gate to open, allowing sodium ions to flow into the cell.

Another gate on the opposite side of the cell would then open, allowing more ions to escape and move the current along to the next cell.

Huxley and Hodgkin, who were both knighted in 1974, shared their Nobel with John Eccles of Australia.

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Winner of Nobel Prize for cell work dies