Brian Kobilka
Facts
© The Nobel Foundation. Photo: U. Montan
Brian K. Kobilka
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2012
Born: 30 May 1955, Little Falls, MN, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
Prize motivation: “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors”
Prize share: 1/2
Life
Brian Kobilka was born and raised in Little Falls, Minnesota, where his father and grandfather worked as bakers. After studying at the University of Minnesota Duluth, he earned his medical degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. After completing his residency in St Louis, Missouri, Kobilka moved to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he conducted his Nobel Prize-winning research together with Robert Lefkowitz. He has been employed at Stanford University since 1989. Brian Kobilka is married with two children.
Work
Communication between the cells in your body are managed by substances called hormones. Each cell has a small receiver known as a receptor, which is able to receive hormones. In the 1980s, Brian Kobilka successfully identified the gene that regulates the formation of the receptor for the hormone adrenaline. He and Robert Lefkowitz also discovered that the receptor was similar to receptors located in the eye that capture light. It was later discovered that there is an entire family of receptors that look and act in similar ways–G-protein-coupled receptors. Approximately half of all medications used today make use of this kind of receptor.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
