1965 – 1972
Jurgen Schnermann
■ Robert L. Post and R. Wayne Albers begin to define the canonical catalytic cycle of the
Na/K pump.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to François Jacob, André
Lwoff and Jacques Monod “for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis.
■ Klaus Thurau and Jurgen Schnermann publish the first report describing the phenomenon of tubuloglomerular feedback, whereby fluctuations in fluid and electrolyte delivery to the macula densa result in compensatory changes in glomerular filtration.
■ The first US combat troops arrive in Vietnam.
■ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and more than 2,600 others arrested in Selma, Ala., during demonstrations against voter-registration rules.
■ Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford aboard Gemini VI perform the first rendezvous with another spacecraft, Gemini VII, with Frank Borman and James Lovell.
■ Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov performs the first spacewalk.
A. Clifford Barger
■ A. Clifford Barger becomes Co-Chair of the APS Porter Development Committee and focuses the committee’s activities on providing opportunities for underserved minorities for careers in physiology. Barger later created the William Townsend Porter Foundation from assets of the sale of the Harvard Apparatus Company with the mission of advancing the role of minorities in physiology.
■ Maurice B. Burg and his colleagues published the technique for isolating and perfusing segments of mammalian renal tubules in vitro, thereby permitting the close examination of the steps in transepithelial transport in intact nephrons from all regions of the kidney.
■ Alex Bangham describes the structure and methods for preparing liposomes.
■ Robert K. Crane lays the groundwork for the lifesaving oral rehydration solution therapy for cholera by identifying the coupling of sodium and glucose absorption in the small intestine.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Peyton Rous “for his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses” and Charles Brenton Huggins “for his discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer.”
■ Gerhard Malnic and Gerhard Giebisch, using micropuncture techniques in rats, demonstrated directly that potassium was normally secreted along the distal tubule andthat such secretion did not involve direct exchange for sodium but that it probably involved passive movement across the tubule luminal membrane.
Gerhard Giebisch
■ Christiaan Barnard of South Africa performs the first human heart transplant which was made possible by advances in the physiological studies of the heart.
■ Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit “for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye.”
■ T. S. Reese and M. J. Karnovsky used the electron microscope to show that in mouse cerebral capillaries that it was not the astrocytic endfeet or basement membrane that was forming the blood brain barrier but endothelium itself.
■ Ellis Ridgway makes the first measurement of an intracellular ‘calcium transient’ using the bioluminescent protein aequorin in a muscle cell.
■ Åke B Vallbo and Karl-Erik Hagbarth obtain electrophysiological recordings of activity in human muscle nerves using microneurography.
■ Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
■ Astronauts Col. Virgil I. Grissom, Col. Edward White II, and Lt. Cmdr. Roger
B. Chaffee killed in fire during test launch.
■ Stanley Dudrick perfects a technique for successful long-term delivery of total intravenous nutrient solution leading to current day nutritional support of critically ill patients.
■ APS hosts the XXIV International Congress of Physiological Sciences in Washington, DC.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Robert W. Holley, Har
Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg “for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.”
■ Laboratory investigations by Bernard Fisher and colleagues leads to the formulation of a biological hypothesis of cancer resulting in the development of cancer treatments based upon science.
Bernard Fisher
■ President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces he will not seek or accept presidential nomination.
■ Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader, is slain in Memphis.
■ Sen. Robert F. Kennedy is shot and killed in a Los Angeles hotel after winning
California primary.
■ North Korea seizes US Navy ship Pueblo.
■ North Vietnamese launch the Tet Offensive, a turning point in the Vietnam War.
■ Czechoslovakia is invaded by Russians and Warsaw Pact forces to crush liberal regime.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rafael Rubio
Robert Berne
■ Robert Berne and Rafael Rubio demonstrate that adenosine is released from heart muscle and mediates changes in blood flow.
■ Roger Guillemin and colleagues and Andrew Schally and colleagues independently isolate and characterize the thyrotropin releasing factor, the first of the hypothalamic hormones that control pituitary function.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Max Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey and Salvador E. Luria “for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.”
■ Franz Halberg’s studies help to define the field of chronobiology, which defines how bodily rhythms are influenced by time.
■ Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. take first walk on the Moon.
■ In August, more than half a million people gather in the small, upstate New York town of
Bethel (near Woodstock, NY) for four days of rain, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
Ernst Knobil
■ Pierre Changeux isolates the acetylcholine receptor, the first receptor to be identified.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sir Bernard Katz,
Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod “for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation.”
■ Ernst Knobil and colleagues describe the pulsatile nature of GnRH secretion and its importance in controlling gonadotropin secretion.
John Clements
■ Stanley G. Schultz and Peter Curran publish their model of coupled transport of sodium and organic solutes.
■ Four students at Kent State University in Ohio slain by National
Guardsmen at demonstration protesting incursion into
Cambodia.
■ Barry M. Brenner and coworkers quantify the driving forces for glomerular filtration and calculate the glomerular capillary ultrafiltration coefficient for the mammalian kidney.
■ John Clements and colleagues discover that continuous positive airway pressure
(CPAP) applied to newborn infants with Respiratory Distress Syndrome greatly improved survival of infants born very prematurely.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. “for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones.”
■ Hector DeLuca and colleagues identify 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol as the active form of vitamin D3.
■ Anti-war militants march on Washington and attempt to disrupt government business.
■ All in the Family debuts on CBS.
Stanley G. Schultz
Arthur C. Guyton
■ Arthur C. Guyton and colleagues publish landmark article on systems analysis of arterial pressure regulation and hypertension.
■ S. John Singer and Gary L. Nicolson publish their paper defining the fluid mosaic model of the structure of cell membranes.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Gerald M. Edelman and Rodney R.
Porter “for their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies.”
■ D. I. McCloskey and J. H. Mitchell provide conclusive evidence that the exercise pressor raising reflex was mediated by afferent neural information arising from Group III and IV muscle receptors.
■ Juha J. Kokko and Floyd Rector and, independently and simultaneously, John L. Stephenson proposed a “passive” countercurrent multiplication mechanism to explain the generation of the osmotic gradient in the renal inner medulla involved in production of concentrated urine.
■ Five men are apprehended by police in attempt to bug Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC’s Watergate complex.
Floyd Rector