Awards
He won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his experimental and mathematical work with Alan Hodgkin on the basis of nerve action potentials, the electrical impulses that enable the activity of an organism to be coordinated by a central nervous system. Hodgkin and Huxley shared the prize that year with John Eccles, who was cited for research on synapses. Hodgkin and Huxley's findings led the pair to hypothesize the existence of ion channels, which were isolated only decades later. Together with the Swiss physiologist Robert Stämpfli he evidenced the existence of saltatory conduction in myelinated nerve fibres.
Huxley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 17 March 1955, and was awarded the Copley Medal in 1973 "in recognition of his outstanding studies on the mechanisms of the nerve impulse and of activation of muscular contraction." He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 November 1974. Sir Andrew was then appointed to the Order of Merit on 11 November 1983. In 1976–77, he was President of the British Science Association and from 1980 to 1985 he served as President of the Royal Society.
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