Nobel Prize Recipient. Herbert Gasser received international recognition after being awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He shared the coveted award with Dr. Joseph Erlanger, who had been his college professor. According to the Nobel Prize committee, the two recipients received the award "for their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibers." Since 1935, he received 18 nominations for the Nobel candidacy. Born the son of an Austrian immigrant, who was a physician, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1910 and M.A. degree 1911. While at the University of Wisconsin, Erlanger was his physiology professor. He began his medical studies at the University of Wisconsin, but transferred in 1913 to Johns Hopkins Medical School, which was Erlanger's alma mater, earning his M.D. in 1915. During World War I, he served in Washington D. C. researching war-wound shock and chemical warfare. After spending a year at the University of Wisconsin, he went to Washington University in St. Louis where he became associated with Dr. Joseph Erlanger and became a professor of pharmacology in 1925. During his time at Washington University, which spanned from 1916 to 1931, he, along with Erlanger, studied the barely detectable electrical impulses carried by isolated nerve fibers. By 1924, they had succeeded in using an oscillograph to visualize amplified nerve impulses on a fluorescent screen. Using the oscillograph, they showed that different nerve fibers exist for the transmission of specific kinds of impulses. This work made it possible to construct improved recording machines to diagnose brain and nervous disorders and to ascertain the success of treatments for these diseases. It was this work that would later earn both him and Erlanger the Nobel Prize in 1944. From 1923 to 1925 he was granted a leave of absence to study in Europe with a Rockefeller Grant. In 1931, his professional partnership in research with Erlanger ended, when he was appointed professor of physiology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Four years later, he was appointed director of the Rockefeller Institute in New York City and his tenure there would last until 1953. He wrote over 100 scientific papers and books about various neurophysical topics. Besides the Nobel Prize, he earned many other awards and honors for his work and was a member of many medical societies. He never married. He used his Nobel monetary award for research.