Alfred G. Gilman
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Alfred G. Gilman
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1994
Born: 1 July 1941, New Haven, CT, USA
Died: 23 December 2015, Dallas, TX, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA
Prize motivation: “for their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells”
Prize share: 1/2
Work
In order for an organism to function, signals are conveyed within and between the body’s various organs and cells through electrical currents and special molecules. Alfred Gilman and Martin Rodbell showed how the signal transfer through the cell wall happens. Around 1970 Rodbell demonstrated that the signal transfer occurs in three steps—reception, transfer and reinforcement—and that guanosine triphosphate is a driving force in the transfer. In 1980 Gilman discovered that molecules involved in the transfer are a type of protein that reacts with GTP—G proteins.
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