Penn has its share of science luminaries, many in the same household, and at all stages of career path. Perelman School of Medicine long-time physiologists Clara Franzini-Armstrong, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, and Clay Armstrong, MD, Emeritus Professor of Physiology, are both members of the National Academy of Sciences and the only married couple to hold that honor. That’s just where their list of contributions to science begins.
Armstrong won the Laskar Award for Basic Science in 1999, the John Scott Award in 2000, and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2001. Franzini-Armstrong won the 1989 K.C. Cole and the 2007 Founder's Awards from the Biophysical Society and received an honorary MD from the University of Pisa in 1997. She is also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Society London.
Their five decades of research, hers on electron microscopy of the inner workings of cells and his on ion channels in cell membranes, was recognized recently by their professional society -- the Society of General Physiologists – with a named lecture series.
Rod MacKinnon, a 2003 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, gave the inaugural keynote in a lecture series at this year’s annual meeting, always held at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. And at the upcoming 2014 meeting, two more Nobel laureates – Linda Buck and Martin Chalfie -- will be giving the now annual Society’s Friends of Physiology Lecture Series Honoring Clara Franzini-Armstrong and Clay Armstrong.
The Armstrongs are a unique fount of knowledge and insight on the understanding of ion channels and excitable membranes and muscle structure and function at the basic science level, says Stephen M Baylor, MD, professor of Physiology. “Their cumulative work for the last five decades is unmatched in their respective fields and today both are still adding important new knowledge with ongoing laboratory work and research publications. An under-appreciated dimension of their contributions is their commitment to teaching and to the next generation of scientists. They are always available to students and colleagues to talk about new experiments and to explain their comprehensive understanding of their subjects. On a personal level, you will not find more modest, nicer, or more constructive people.”
To learn more about their research legacy, check out the interview by Elizabeth Adler, PhD, Executive Editor of the Journal of General Physiology, on the occasion of the first Friends of Physiology Lecture.