Hugh Esmor Huxley MBE FRS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_E._Huxley

Hugh Esmor Huxley MBE FRS (February 25, 1924 - July 25, 2013) was a British biologist and professor of biology at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States.

Education

Huxley received his PhD from Christ's College, Cambridge. He is most noted for his study of the structure of muscle. In the 1950s he was one of the first to use electron microscopy to establish the sliding filament model for muscle contraction, involving the sliding between actin filaments and myosin filaments in striated skeletal muscle.

Career

Following his PhD, Huxley continued to increase our understanding of muscle structure, using electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction methodologies. Much of his research used frog muscle as a model system. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960 and awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1971. He also won one of its Royal Medals in 1977 and its Copley Medal in 1997. He also received the William Bate Hardy Prize in 1966, and the Franklin Medal in 1990. He was conferred the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in 1987 for his contributions to molecular biology, notably his classic work in the field of muscle biology.

Professor Huxley was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.