Otto Loewi (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine)

Otto Loewi was a German-born neuroscientist who won the Nobel Prize in 1936 for discovering how nerve cells communicate. He demonstrated this by conducting experiments with frog hearts, showing that certain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are released by nerves to signal other cells. His key experiment involved transferring a fluid from a heart stimulated to beat faster to a second heart, which then also sped up, proving that chemical messengers mediate nerve signals. Loewi’s work was foundational in understanding how our nervous system controls bodily functions through chemical communication.