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发信人: Gabriel (仕楚客), 信区: Science
标  题: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Wed Oct  8 17:53:47 2003), 转信

Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003

8 October 2003

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for 2003 for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes,
with one half of the prize to Peter Agre, Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine, Baltimore, USA, for the discovery of water channels and one half of
the prize to Roderick MacKinnon Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The
Rockefeller University, New York, USA, for structural and mechanistic studies
of ion channels.


Molecular channels let us enter the chemistry of the cell

We human beings consist to about 70% of salt water. This year's Nobel Prize
in Chemistry rewards two scientists whose discoveries have clarified how
salts (ions) and water are transported out of and into the cells of the body.
The discoveries have afforded us a fundamental molecular understanding of
how, for example, the kidneys recover water from primary urine and how the
electrical signals in our nerve cells are generated and propagated. This is
of great importance for our understanding of many diseases of e.g. the
kidneys, heart, muscles and nervous system.

That the body's cells must contain specific channels for transporting water
was suspected as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. However, it
was not until 1988 that Peter Agre succeeded in isolating a membrane protein
that, a year or so later, he realised must be the long-sought-after water
channel. This decisive discovery opened the door to a whole series of
biochemical, physiological and genetic studies of water channels in bacteria,
plants and mammals. Today, researchers can follow in detail a water molecule
on its way through the cell membrane and understand why only water, not other
small molecules or ions, can pass.

The other type of membrane channel which is the subject of this year's Prize
is the ion channel. Roderick MacKinnon surprised the whole research community
when in 1998 he was able to determine the spatial structure of a potassium
channel. Thanks to this contribution we can now 鈥渟ee鈥 ions flowing
through channels that can be opened and closed by different cellular signals.

The ion channels are important for, among other things, the function of the
nervous system and the muscles. What is called the action potential of nerve
cells is generated when an ion channel on the surface of a nerve cell is
opened by a chemical signal sent from an adjacent nerve cell, whereupon an
electrical pulse is propagated along the surface of the nerve cell through
the opening and closing of further ion channels in the course of a few
milliseconds.

This year's Prize illustrates how contemporary biochemistry reaches down to
the atomic level in its quest to understand the fundamental processes of life.


Read more about this year's prize
Information for the Public
Advanced Information (pdf)
Links and Further Reading



Peter Agre, born 1949 (54 years) in Northfield, Minnesota (US citizen).
Medical Doctor 1974 at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, USA. Professor of Biological Chemistry and Professor of Medicine
at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.

Roderick MacKinnon, 47 years, grew up in Burlington outside Boston, USA (US
citizen). Medical Doctor 1982 at Tufts Medical School, Boston, USA. Professor
of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at The Rockefeller University in New
York, USA.

Prize amount: SEK 10 million, will be shared equally among the Laureates.

Contact persons: Malin Lindgren, Information officer, Phone +46 8 673 95 22,
+46 709 88 60 04, malin@kva.se, Eva Krutmeijer, Head of Information, Phone
+46 8 673 95 95, +46 709 84 66 38, evak@kva.se
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