Golgi apparatus
Aparato de Golgi
- Date
- 1898 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
- Credited to
- Camillo Golgi
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Applying his own silver-staining technique (the 'black reaction') to cerebellar Purkinje cells, Golgi observed an internal network of structures he called the 'internal reticular apparatus' and presented it to the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia; it is now known to package and route the cell's proteins.
Golgi and Cajal, who shared the 1906 Nobel Prize, publicly disputed the structure of the neuron (continuous networks versus independent cells); Cajal's thesis prevailed.
What it led to
- Recognition of internal organelles as distinct functional units within the cell
- The basis for understanding the secretory pathway and protein trafficking
- Golgi's 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Ramón y Cajal