Chemistry Nobel goes to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka

BBC News, 10 October 2012

In 1987 Brian Kobilka (l) joined forces with Robert Lefkowitz at the HHMI

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The 2012 Nobel prize in chemistry has gone to two US researchers whose work shed light on how the billions of cells in our body sense their environments.

Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka, both of the US, will share the prize of 8m Swedish kronor (£750,000; $1.2m).

Their work focuses on what are called G protein-coupled receptors, a number of proteins that reach through cell walls.

Understanding how they work has been crucial to unravelling the complex network of signalling between cells.

Sven Lidin of the Nobel committee started his summary of the work by shouting "Boo!" to assembled reporters; the rush of adrenaline one gets when scared, he explained, is just one manifestation of this vast network, communicating a chemical signal across billions of cells through otherwise impenetrable cell membranes.

'Enormous advances'

Dr Lefkowitz, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Maryland, was reached by phone during the conference.

He was asked about receiving the fateful phone call informing him of his win, saying that he had not heard the phone ring.

"I must share with you that I wear earplugs and so my wife gave me an elbow, 'call for you', and there it was: a total shock and surprise, as I'm sure many before me have experienced.

"I'm thinking this is going to be a very, very hectic day. I was going to get a haircut - which if you could see me is quite a necessity - but I'm afraid that'll have to be postponed."

He went on to explain that the receptors "serve as the gateway to the cells for many different neurotransmitters and hormones in our body".

They capture signalling molecules both in healthy bodies and are the target for half of all pharmaceutical drugs. 

In 2011 Dr Kobilka determined
 the structure of a receptor as it
was activated by a hormone

"They are crucially positioned to regulate almost every known physiological process in humans. As physicians, what we need to do in cases of disease is regulate the activity of these, like adrenaline, as you heard, serotonin, and dopamine," Dr Lefkowitz added.

But signalling goes further than just the network of cells; ulitmately these same receptors link the cells to the outside world, ultimately allowing us to see, taste and smell.

Dr Lefkowitz started investigating the receptors by following the movement of radioactive isotopes attached to hormones within cells in the laboratory, trying to track down how signals get through cell membranes.

Dr Kobilka - who is now at Stanford University in California - joined the HHMI team in the 1980s, and they took another tack to discover how the receptors come about, searching within the human genome for the code that lays out the genetic instructions for them.

Taken together, the pair's work, as the Nobel site's summary explains, represents "knowledge... of the greatest benefit to mankind".

Mark Sansom of Oxford University said: "G-protein coupled receptors have for a long time been the holy grail of membrane protein research.

"In particular Kobilka's work in determining the structure of G-protein coupled receptors has revolutionised our understanding of how they work as small 'molecular machines' and will lead to enormous advances in drug design.

"Thus this is work at the biology/chemistry interface of great importance, and also with considerable impact in the broader sense."

The total number of chemistry Nobel recipients has now reached 163 since they began in 1901.

On Monday, the 2012 prize for medicine or physiology was awarded to John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan for changing adult cells into stem cells, and on Tuesday the prize for physics was awarded to Serge Haroche of France and David Wineland of the US for their work in querying single light and matter particles.

The prizes for literature and peace will be awarded later in the week, with the economics prize to be announced on Monday.

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Gurdon and Yamanaka share Nobel prize for stem cell work

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version) 

“… Explanation of the Temple of Rejuvenation

The Temple of Rejuvenation has two Human Beings quantumly entangled. One is the target. The other one is the "template." Life extension, through the knowledge of DNA that Yawee had, was to entangle the target with the template and transfer certain attributes from the one to the other.

The only way this could ever work is if DNA had a quantum attribute, and it does. All our teaching for more than 10 years has told you that the 90 percent of DNA that is non-encoded and considered "junk" is a quantum instruction set. Therefore, the DNA molecule must have some quantum attributes yet to be discovered, but that are very real and have to do with instructions to the chemistry of more than three billion parts of the DNA molecule. This is especially true to the gene-producing chemistry of the protein-encoded parts. For simplicity, I tell you that DNA is actively dynamic and can change the reality of everything you think of as "normal."

Yawee, you explained very well the attributes of the target creating an entangled state with the template Human. Now we reveal that the template was (1) a woman (2) who is pregnant. You have...

Todd interrupting: ... the source of the perfect DNA template!

That is correct! So the secret of the Temple of Rejuvenation is twofold: (1) DNA is perfect on Earth within an unborn child and you can transfer some of the attributes of that perfection before it assimilates the energy of the planet. (2) You can extend life and healing through a quantum communication with the DNA molecule. Do you see the implications? The wise, divine feminine who is with child is the only one who could be on the template table. Are you starting to understand the beauty of this, the implications of this and where it's going? …”