Stephen William Kuffler (August 24 Tap, Hungary, 1913 – October 11, 1980) was a pre-eminent Hungarian-American neurophysiologist. Often, he's been referred to as the "Father of Modern Neuroscience". He founded the Harvard Neurobiology department in 1966, and made numerous seminal contributions to our understanding of vision, neural coding, and the neural implementation of behavior. He is known for his research on neuromuscular junctions in frogs, presynaptic inhibition, and the neurotransmitter GABA. In 1972, he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University.
Contents |
Kuffler was widely recognized as a truly original and creative neuroscientist. In addition to numerous prizes, honorary degrees, and special lectureships from countries over the world, Steve was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1964 and to the Royal Society as Foreign Member in 1971. In 1964 he was named the Robert Winthrop professor of neurophysiology and neuropharmacology. From 1966 to 1974 he was the Robert Winthrop professor of neurobiology, and in 1974 he became John Franklin Enders university professor.
A detailed, affectionate, and authoritative account of Stephen Kuffler's life and work has been provided by Sir Bernard Katz (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 28, pp. 225-59, 1982) and in a book entitled Steve, Remembrances of Stephen W. Kuffler, compiled and introduced by U. J. McMahan (Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Associates, 1990)."