Oliver Baker

Oliver's scientific work in graduate school and as a postdoc addressed the underpinnings of nerve impulses, which are traveling waves of electric charge. Microscopic portholes in the sides of every jelly-filled nerve fiber allow charges to enter or exit exactly as an impulse flashes by, propelling it along in the process. Oliver helped solve the more than fifty year-old mystery of how this works. His 1996 paper, co-authored with Peter Larsson, made the news in Science magazine and helped make for a "wildly exciting period" in the study of these portholes, which scientists call "ion channels." Ehud Isacoff headed the highly collaborative UC Berkeley lab where Oliver did this work.