LOEWI, OTTO

LOEWI, OTTO (1873–1961), pharmacologist and Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine. Loewi was born in Frankfurt on the Main but became a U.S. citizen in 1946. He graduated in medicine at the University of Strasbourg (then in Germany). After initial appointments in the universities of Marburg and Vienna he became professor of pharmacology at the University of Graz, Austria (1909–38). After the German invasion he was imprisoned, deprived of his possessions (including his Nobel Prize money), and allowed to leave. After working in Brussels and Oxford (1939–40), he was appointed research professor at New York University College of Medicine. Loewi's initial contributions concerned carbohydrate and nitrogen metabolism but his main research interest was in the sympathetic nervous system. He proved that nerve impulses in the parasympathetic nervous system are transmitted by acetylcholine and, with his collaborators, he established that nerve impulses in the sympathetic nervous system in general are mediated through chemical transmission. He was awarded the Nobel Prize (jointly with Sir Henry Dale) in 1936 for this work. His honors included foreign membership in the Royal Society (London). The Austrian government issued a stamp to commemorate the centenary of his birth. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)