In 1968, Sir John Eccles joined the faculty of the University at Buffalo as Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Biophysics. Eccles had been awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1963 for his research in nerve impulse transmission. Born in 1903 in Melbourne, Australia, he received his M.B. and B.S. from the Melbourne University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Oxford University.