Ulf von Euler

Ulf Svante von Euler was born on February 7, 1905, in Stockholm into a celebrated scientific dynasty: his father was Nobel chemistry laureate Hans von Euler-Chelpin and his mother botanist Astrid Cleve. Earning his medical doctorate at the Karolinska Institute in 1930, he studied abroad under Henry Dale and Corneille Heymans.

In 1931, Euler discovered Substance P, an important neuropeptide. In 1935, he discovered and named prostaglandins in seminal fluid. His crowning discovery came in 1946 when he proved that noradrenaline (norepinephrine) is the principal neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system, storing and releasing chemical signals at nerve terminals. Awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Julius Axelrod and Bernard Katz, he served as President of the Nobel Foundation from 1965 to 1975.