LOS ANGELES – The 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Dr. Alan Lloyd Hodgkin sold Friday, Oct. 30, for $795,614 by Nate D. Sanders Auctions. It was the only 13th Nobel Prize ever to be sold at auction.

Hodgkin was born in 1914 in Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK, and graduated Trinity College at Cambridge University in 1943. During World War II, he worked on radar development. After World War II, he returned to a teaching position at Cambridge in the physiology department.

In 1963, Hodgkin along with colleague A.F. Huxley received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their revolutionary research on the central nervous system. Using nerve cells or axons from the giant squid, Hodgkin and Huxley studied the phenomenon of action potentials in which a stimulated nerve cell generates an electrical pulse. The two scientists modeled the behavior of the cell mathematically resulting in a set of four differential equations that represent the different biophysical reactions taking place when the nerve cell emits an electrical voltage spike. The ensemble of nerve cells comprises the central nervous system and utilize these voltage spikes for communication between cells.

Hodgkin died in 1998 in Cambridge.

The Nobel Prize medal is 23K gold. It features the relief portrait of Alfred Nobel on its front, with his name, and his birthdate and death years. The verso features a relief of the goddess Isis. Encircling the medal are the words “Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes,” translating to “And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery.”

Hodgkin’s name and the year 1963 in Roman numerals are engraved on a plaque below the relief. The inscription, “Reg. Acad. Scient Suec” is the abbreviation for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Etched upon the medal is Erik Lindberg’s name, the designer of the Nobel medal. The 196-gram medal is displayed in its original leather case with Hodgkin’s name stamped in gold.

The Nobel Prize comes with a letter of authenticity from Hodgkin’s daughter.

Bidding for the Nobel Prize began at $450,000.

In May 2015, Nate D. Sanders auctioned Dr. Leon M. Lederman’s Nobel Prize in Physics, which he won in 1988, for $765,002.