John Carew Eccles

(1903-1997)

Sir John Eccles won the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1963 for his ground-breaking research on how signals are transferred from one nerve to another. John Eccles was born on 27 January 1903 in Northcote, and was the son of two school teacher- William James Eccles and Mary Carew. He graduated from medicine at the University of Melbourne in 1925. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Oxford under the distinguished neurophysiologist, Sir Charles Sherrington. In 1937 he returned to Australia as the Director of Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology at  Sydney Hospital. In 1951 he accepted the Chair of Physiology at the newly established John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra. It was here that he undertook his ground-breaking work that led to his winning the Nobel Prize. He was awarded his knighthood in 1958. He died on 2 May 1997 in Locarno Switzerland.

Australian Academy of Science. John Carew Eccles 1903-1997. Retrieved September 5, 2022, https://www.science.org.au/fellowship/fellows/biographical-memoirs/john-carew-eccles-1903-1997