Clay Armstrong is a prominent physiologist and a former student of Dr. Andrew Fielding Huxley. He was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1996. He won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (shared with Bertil Hille and Roderick MacKinnon) in 1999. He is currently a professor of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ideas and influence

Much of our present knowledge concerning ion channel structure and function can be traced to Dr. Clay Armstrong. He provided the first general description of the K+ ion channel pore, including the fundamental ideas of a selectivity filter, a wider inner vestibule and a gate on the inside. A consistent feature of Armstrong's contributions is the absolutely quantitative nature of the work and the resulting fidelity of his clear and concise descriptions. His work has been so profound that it has had enormous influence on the work of others, leading to our present understanding of channel structure and function.

References

• Clay Armstrong's page at UPenn
• Lasker Award
• Gairdner