Modern Discoveries in Neuroscience... And What They Reveal About You (Collection)

3. Biophysics at University College

Although Bernard Katz’s impact on the course of neuroscience was as at least as great as Kuffler’s, the style of the two men was very different, and their influence was felt in different ways. Whereas Kuffler’s modus operandi was quintessentially eclectic—he would work on a project with a collaborator or two for a few years and then move on to an entirely different problem—Katz was a scientific bulldog. He had seized on the fundamental problem of chemical synaptic transmission in the late 1940s and never let it go. And whereas Kuffler was, superficially at least, an extroverted democrat, Katz was reserved and, to some degree, an autocrat.

As a result of these personal contrasts, as well as the cultural distinctions ...