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Martin Rodbell | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rodbell in 1994 | |
| Born | (1925-12-01)December 1, 1925 |
| Died | December 7, 1998(1998-12-07) (aged 73) |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University University of Washington |
| Known for | G-proteins signal transduction |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
| Relatives | Sanne Ledermann (sister-in-law) |
| Awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1994) Gairdner Foundation International Award (1984) Richard Lounsbery Award (1987) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemist |
| Institutions | National Institute of Health Duke University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Martin Rodbell (December 1, 1925[1] – December 7, 1998) was an Americanbiochemist andmolecularendocrinologist who is best known for his discovery ofG-proteins. He shared the 1994Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine withAlfred G. Gilman for "their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells."
Rodbell was born inBaltimore, Maryland, the son of Shirley (née Abrams) and Milton Rodbell, a grocer.[2] His family wasJewish.[3] After graduating from theBaltimore City College high school, he enteredJohns Hopkins University in 1943, with interests inbiology andFrench existential literature. In 1944, his studies were interrupted by his military service as aU.S. Navyradio operator duringWorld War II. He returned to Hopkins in 1946 and received his B.S. in biology in 1949. In 1950, he marriedBarbara Charlotte Ledermann, a former friend ofMargot Frank, diaristAnne Frank's older sister. Martin and Barbara had four children. Rodbell received his Ph.D. inbiochemistry at theUniversity of Washington in 1954. He did post-doctoral work at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1954 to 1956. In 1956, Rodbell accepted a position as a research biochemist at the National Heart Institute, part of theNational Institutes of Health, inBethesda, Maryland. In 1985, Rodbell became Scientific Director of the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences inResearch Triangle Park, North Carolina where he worked until his retirement in 1994. He was also adjunct professor of Cell Biology atDuke University (from 1991 to 1998)[4] and adjunct professor of pharmacology at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[5][6] He died in Chapel Hill of multiple organ failure after an extended illness.
Reflecting the increasingly common analogies betweencomputer science andbiology in the 1960s, Rodbell believed that the fundamental information processing systems of both computers and biologicalorganisms were similar. He asserted that individual cells were analogous to cybernetic systems made up of three distinct molecular components: discriminators,transducers, andamplifiers (otherwise known as effectors). The discriminator, or cellreceptor, receives information from outside the cell; a celltransducer processes this information across thecell membrane; and the amplifier intensifies these signals to initiate reactions within the cell or to transmit information to other cells.
In December 1969 and early January 1970, Rodbell was working with a laboratory team that studied the effect of the hormoneglucagon on a ratliver membrane receptor—the cellular discriminator that receives outside signals. Rodbell discovered that ATP (adenosine triphosphate) could reverse the binding action of glucagon to the cell receptor and thus dissociate the glucagon from the cell altogether. He then noted that traces of GTP (guanosine triphosphate) could reverse the binding process almost one thousand times faster than ATP. Rodbell deduced that GTP was probably the active biological factor in dissociating glucagon from the cell's receptor, and that GTP had been present as an impurity in his earlier experiments with ATP. This GTP, he found, stimulated the activity in the guanine nucleotide protein (later called the G-protein), which, in turn, produced profound metabolic effects in the cell. This activation of the G-protein, Rodbell postulated, was the "second messenger" process thatEarl W. Sutherland had theorized. In the language of signal transduction, the G-protein, activated by GTP, was the principal component of the transducer, which was the crucial link between the discriminator and the amplifier. Later, Rodbell postulated, and then provided evidence for, additional G-proteins at the cell receptor that could inhibit and activate transduction, often at the same time. In other words, cellular receptors were sophisticated enough to have several different processes going on simultaneously.
