Martin Rodbell

Facts

Martin Rodbell

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Martin Rodbell
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1994

Born: 1 December 1925, Baltimore, MD, USA

Died: 7 December 1998, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC, 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. Martin Rodbell and Alfred Gilman 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.

To cite this section
MLA style: Martin Rodbell – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Sun. 10 Dec 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1994/rodbell/facts/>

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