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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jul 18.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2013 Jul 10;79(1):12–15. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.06.020

Figure 2. The Grass Laboratory played a decisive role in the scientific career of many leading neuroscientists in the field of synaptic transmission.

Figure 2

Top: Fellow Ricardo Miledi with Albert Grass at the MBL in 1955. The Grass fellowship was transformative for Miledi, seeding his interest in the role of Ca++ in synaptic transmission. In collaboration with Bernard Katz and Paul Fatt (Katz, 1969), Miledi later provided major contributions to our understanding of mechanisms of transmitter release and pioneered the use of frog oocytes to study native receptors and express exogenous messenger RNA. Bottom: Fellow Michael V.L. Bennett in 1958, recording from supramedullary cells in a puffer fish. Bennett’s investigations while a Grass Fellow led to one of the first demonstrations of electrical coupling between vertebrate neurons. He later contributed to the detailed characterization of this modality of synaptic transmission, which is mediated by membrane specializations known as gap junctions. Michael Bennett’s seminal observations defined this field of research, in which he is the unequivocal world’s expert.