
Michael J. Berridge
Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine 1995/6

The Prize Committee for Medicine has unanimously decided that the Wolf Prize for 1994/5 jointly awarded to: Michael J. Berridge and Yasutomi Nishizuka.
Michael J. Berridge
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom
“for their discoveries concerning cellular transmembrane signalling involving phospholipids and calcium.”
Working independently, Professors Berridge and Nishizuka have dramatically advanced our understanding of signal transduction cascades that regulate a wide variety of cellular processes, including secretion, fertilization, cellular growth and differentiation, and information processing in the brain.
Michael Berridge’s major achievement is the discovery of a novel, lipid-derived mediator of cell signalling, inositol trisphosphate, and its role in regulating intracellular calcium. This ubiquitous signalling system is involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Berridge’s discovery has opened many new avenues of inquiry: the regulation of intracellular calcium, the metabolism and activities of inositol phosphates, the role of lipids in cell signalling, and the coupling of signalling agents to inositol phosphate formation. It thus ranks as one of the key contributions to understanding a fundamental property of living cells, their response to environmental signals.
