William A. Catterall
William A. Catterall (October 12, 1946 – February 28, 2024) was an American scientist who studied how ion channels work in nerve and muscle cells. He was a professor of pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and is best known for his work on sodium and calcium voltage-gated ion channels.
Education and early career: He earned a BA in chemistry from Brown University in 1968 and a PhD in physiological chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1972. As a Muscular Dystrophy Association Fellow, he did postdoctoral research at the NIH with Marshall Nirenberg from 1972 to 1974, then remained at the NIH as a staff scientist until 1977.
UW career: He joined the University of Washington as an associate professor in 1977, became a full professor in 1981, and led the pharmacology department from 1984 to 2016.
Impact: Catterall published more than 500 papers and trained over 150 junior scientists.
Death: He died suddenly of cardiac arrest on February 28, 2024, at age 77.
Honors: He was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in 2010. He won the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research in 2003, was made a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2008, and received the Canada Gairdner International Award in 2010.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:23 (CET).