14 Facts About Bertil Hille

Bertil Hille is particularly well known for his pioneering research on cell signalling by ion channels.

Bertil Hille's father is Carl Einar Hille, a Yale math professor and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Bertil Hille attended the Foote School and Westminster School.

In 1968 Bertil Hille joined the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington's School of Medicine.

Bertil Hille is married to Merrill Burr Hille, Professor Emerita of Biology at the University of Washington, and has two sons, Erik Darwin Hille and Jon Trygve Hille Grey.

Bertil Hille pioneered the concept of ion channels as membrane proteins forming gated aqueous pores.

Bertil Hille showed that Na+ and K+ channels of axons could be distinguished by drugs such as tetrodotoxin and tetraethylammonium ion, and that their ionic selectivity can be understood by limiting pore size, the selectivity filter, and by movements of ions through a series of saturable sites.

Bertil Hille showed that local anesthetics enter Na+ channels in a state-dependent manner.

Bertil Hille distinguished two new signaling pathways for excitable cells.

New tools and findings from the Hille lab, together with the initial finding from Donald W Hilgemann's lab at UT southwestern, demonstrated that PIP2 is an essential cofactor for many ion channels and transporters.

Bertil Hille has developed a detailed model of the PIP2 loss mechanism and its effects on the muscarinic inhibition of M-channels.

Bertil Hille has published more than 200 papers and book chapters.

Bertil Hille is the author of multiple editions of Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes, described as an essential introduction not just for beginners but for readers throughout the areas of biochemistry and biophysics.

Bertil Hille's book is considered to mark a turning point in the field, defining the modern era of ion channel studies.