Haldan Keffer Hartline

Haldan Keffer Hartline ForMemRS[1] (December 22, 1903 – March 17, 1983) was an American physiologist who was a co-recipient (with George Wald and Ragnar Granit) of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision.[9]

Haldan Keffer Hartline
Haldan Keffer Hartline, circa 1958
Born(1903-12-22)December 22, 1903
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, US
DiedMarch 17, 1983(1983-03-17) (aged 79)
Fallston, Maryland, US
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Known forVisual perception
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysiology
Institutions
Doctoral advisorAugust Herman Pfund

Education

Hartline did his undergraduate studies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1923. He began his study of retinal electrophysiology as a National Research Council Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, receiving his medical degree in 1927.

Career and research

After attending the universities of Leipzig and Munich as an Eldridge Johnson traveling research scholar from the University of Pennsylvania, he returned to the US to take a position in the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Foundation for Medical Physics at Penn, which was under the directorship of Detlev W. Bronk at that time. In 1940–1941, he was Associate Professor of Physiology at Cornell Medical College in New York City, but returned to Penn and stayed until 1949. Then he became professor of biophysics and chairman of the Jenkins Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in 1949. One of Hartline's graduate students at Johns Hopkins, Paul Greengard, also won the Nobel Prize. Hartline joined the staff of Rockefeller University, New York City, in 1953 as professor of neurophysiology.

Hartline investigated the electrical responses of the retinas of certain arthropods, vertebrates, and mollusks, because their visual systems are much simpler than those of humans and thus easier to study. He concentrated his studies on the eye of the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus). Using minute electrodes, he obtained the first record of the electrical impulses sent by a single optic nerve fibre when the receptors connected to it are stimulated by light. He found that the photoreceptor cells in the eye are interconnected in such a way that when one is stimulated, others nearby are depressed, thus enhancing the contrast in light patterns and sharpening the perception of shapes. Hartline thus built up a detailed understanding of the workings of individual photoreceptors and nerve fibres in the retina, and he showed how simple retinal mechanisms constitute vital steps in the integration of visual information.

Awards and honors

In 1948, Hartline was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.[10] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1952 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957.[11][12] Hartline was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1966.[1] He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967.[13][14]

Personal life

Hartline married Elizabeth Kraus Hartline in 1936.[15] They had three children.[16]

References
  1. Granit, R.; Ratliff, F. (1985). "Haldan Keffer Hartline. 22 December 1903-18 March 1983". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 31: 262–292. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1985.0010. ISSN 0080-4606. PMID 11621205.
  2. Raju, T. N. (1999). "The Nobel Chronicles". The Lancet. 354 (9178): 605–779. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)77968-X. PMID 10470741. S2CID 53297408.
  3. Sulek, K. (1969). "Nobel prize for George Wald, Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragner Granit in 1967 for discoveries concerning the primary biochemical and physiological phenomena occurring in the process of vision". Wiadomosci Lekarskie. 22 (13): 1258–1259. PMID 4897321.
  4. Crescitelli, F. (1968). "The 1967 nobel prizes for physiology or medicine". Vision Research. 8 (4): 333–337. doi:10.1016/0042-6989(68)90103-X. PMID 4939576.
  5. Dubois-Poulsen, A. (1968). "The Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1967". Annales d'oculistique. 201 (3): 257–269. PMID 4877173.
  6. Bouman, M. A. (1968). "Ragnar Garnit, Haldan Keffer Hartline, George Wald, winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine". Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde. 112 (1): 23–25. PMID 4875782.
  7. "The Nobel prize for physiology or medicine". Nordisk Medicin. 78 (44): 1429–1434. 1967. PMID 4864608.
  8. Dowling, J. E.; Ratliff, F. (1967). "Nobel Prize: Three Named for Medicine, Physiology Award". Science. 158 (3800): 468–473. Bibcode:1967Sci...158..468D. doi:10.1126/science.158.3800.468. PMID 4860394. S2CID 177926314.
  9. Anon (1967). "Men of vision". British Medical Journal. 4 (5573): 185–186. doi:10.1136/bmj.4.5573.185. PMC 1748629. PMID 4861385.
  10. "Halden K. Hartline". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  11. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  12. "Haldan Keffer Hartline". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  13. Keffer Hartline on Nobelprize.org , accessed 12 October 2020
  14. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir: Haldane Keefer Hartline 1903—1983 A Biographical Memoir by Floyd Ratliff
  15. Rasmussen, Frederick N. "Elizabeth K. Hartline, 91, environmentalist, Maryland Wildlands Committee founder". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  16. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1967". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
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