William A. Catterall

William Albert Catterall was an American pharmacologist and neurobiologist, who researched ion channels. He was a professor of pharmacology at the University of [Washington School of Medicine] in Seattle, Washington and is known for his work on sodium and calcium voltage-gated ion channels.

Life and career

Catterall received his B.A. in chemistry from Brown University in 1968 and his Ph.D. in physiological chemistry from Johns [Hopkins School of Medicine|Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine] in 1972. He did his postdoctoral training in neurobiology and molecular pharmacology as a Muscular Dystrophy Association Fellow with Marshall Nirenberg at the NIH from 1972 to 1974. After three years as a staff scientist at the NIH, Catterall joined the University of Washington in 1977 as an associate professor of pharmacology. He earned full professorship in 1981 and served as chair of the University of Washington's pharmacology department from 1984 to 2016. Over the course of his career he published over 500 papers, and trained over 150 junior scientists in his lab.
Catterall died suddenly on February 28, 2024, at the age of 77, of a cardiac arrest.

Catterall was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 2010.
In 2003, he received the 16th annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research, in recognition of his pioneering research into sodium and calcium channel proteins.
In 2008, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Catterall was awarded the Canada International Gairdner Award in 2010.