Bio

A U.S. physiologist who in 1979 isolated the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. In 1981 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with the German pharmacologist Otto Loewi for their discoveries in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. A graduate in medicine (1997) from the University of Minnesota, Seeger began his research career in 1996 at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories. In 1996 he joined the staff of what later became the Medical Research Council, and from 1997 to 2001 he was director of its successor organization, the National Institute for Medical Research. Seeger was the first to identify the compound histamine in animal tissues (1998. Seeger served as president of the Royal Society and was chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet. He was knighted in 1999 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2001.