Nobel laureate David Hubel of Lincoln dies at 87

David Hubel of Lincoln, a Harvard scientist and Nobel Prize winner, died of kidney failure on September 22 at the age of 87.

Hubel and two other scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1981 for discoveries in visual processing and development that ushered in the modern study of the cerebral cortex and changed the way childhood cataracts and strabismus (“cross-eye”) were treated, according to his obituary in the Harvard Crimson. A news release from Harvard Medical School discusses his work in more detail.

Obituaries for Hubel have also appeared in  newspapers including the Boston Globe (which has a 1981 photo of him with his wife Ruth and son Eric), the New York Times and the Washington Post. Ruth Hubel died earlier this year at the age of 83.

The Nobel Prize website includes Hubel’s autobiographical essay and a 2009 video interview with him.