Americans Robert J Lefkowitz and Brian K Kobilka have won this year's chemistryNobel for their research on G-protein - coupled receptors that allow cells to sense light, taste , odor and receive hormone and neurotransmitter signals.
Your body is a fine-tuned network of milliards of cells interacting. -- cell has tiny receptors that allow it to feel its surroundings, so it can adapt to new situations. Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka win the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering findings exposing the inner workings of a major family of such receptors: G-protein - coupled receptors.
For a long time, how cells would feel their environment remained a mystery. Scientists realized that hormones like adrenaline had powerful effects: increased blood pressure, and faster beatting of the heart. They suspected cell surfaces contained some sort of hormone recipient. But for much of the 20th century what these receptors really consisted of, and how they operated, remained obscured.
In 1968, Lefkowitz began using radioactivity to map receptors of the cells. He added an isotope of iodine to various hormones and, due to the radiation, he managed to unleash multiple receptors, among them an adrenalin receptor: ß-adrenergic receptor. His research team took the receptor out of his hiding place in the cell wall and obtained an initial understanding of how it functions. Read more
Robert J. Lefkowitz, U.S. citizen. Born 1943 in New York, NY, USA. M.D. 1966 from Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. James B. Duke Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.
Brian K. Kobilka, U.S. citizen. Born 1955 in Little Falls, MN, USA. M.D. 1981 from Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Your body is a fine-tuned network of milliards of cells interacting. -- cell has tiny receptors that allow it to feel its surroundings, so it can adapt to new situations. Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka win the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering findings exposing the inner workings of a major family of such receptors: G-protein - coupled receptors.
For a long time, how cells would feel their environment remained a mystery. Scientists realized that hormones like adrenaline had powerful effects: increased blood pressure, and faster beatting of the heart. They suspected cell surfaces contained some sort of hormone recipient. But for much of the 20th century what these receptors really consisted of, and how they operated, remained obscured.
In 1968, Lefkowitz began using radioactivity to map receptors of the cells. He added an isotope of iodine to various hormones and, due to the radiation, he managed to unleash multiple receptors, among them an adrenalin receptor: ß-adrenergic receptor. His research team took the receptor out of his hiding place in the cell wall and obtained an initial understanding of how it functions. Read more