10/10/12 - Duke Univ. professor wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Robert Lefkowitz, Duke University Medical Center, shared the Nobel Prize with his former student, Brian Kabilka, currently of Stanford Univ. The prize recognizes their work on G proteins that are important drug receptors. Dr. Lefkowitz will be a guest speaker on the NCSSM campus in March at the NCSAS competition. At that time he will also be interviewed by the Broad Street Scientific staff. For more details on Dr. Lefkowitz's Nobel Prize see http://today.duke.edu/2012/10/lefkowitznobel

We are fortunate to live in an area that has generated multiple Nobel Laureates:

Oliver Smithies, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill, won the prize in physiology or medicine in 2007 “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.”

Martin Rodbell, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, won the prize in physiology or medicine in 1994 “for their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells.” Rodbell died in 1998.

Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings of the Wellcome Research Laboratories in RTP won the prize for physiology or medicine in 1988 “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.” Hitchings died in 1998; Elion died in 1999.