Jens Christian Skou

Jens Christian Skou was born on October 8, 1918, in Lemvig into a timber merchant family. After completing medical training at the University of Copenhagen, he joined the Institute of Physiology at Aarhus University, studying how local anesthetics interact with cell membranes.

Using crab nerve fibers, Skou discovered an enzyme in the cell membrane that hydrolyzes ATP only in the simultaneous presence of sodium and potassium ions. In 1957, he published his identification of the Na+/K+-ATPase pump, proving how living cells consume energy to maintain vital electrochemical gradients necessary for nerve impulse transmission and muscle contraction. In 1997, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.