Research
His research uncovered fundamental properties of synapses, the junctions across which nerve cells signal to each other and to other types of cells. By the 1950s, he was studying the biochemistry and action of acetylcholine, a signalling molecule with which synapses linking "motor nerves" to muscles stimulate contraction. Katz won the Nobel for his discovery that neurotransmitter release at synapses is "quantal"--that is, that at any particular synapse the amount of neurotransmitter released is never less than a certain amount, and if more is always an integral number times this amount. This circumstance arises, scientists now know, because, prior to their release into the synaptic gap, transmitter molecules reside in like-sized subcellular packages known as synaptic vesicles (more at exocytosis).
Katz's work had immediate influence on the study of organophosphates and organochlorines, the basis of new post-war study for nerve agents and pesticides, as he determined that the complex enzyme cycle was easily disrupted.
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“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?” [Was will das Weib?]”
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“To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities ... than a rigorously enforced divorce from war- oriented research and all connected enterprises.”
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