| Nobel Prize
in Chemistry for 2003
“for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes”,
Peter Agre “for the discovery of water channels”
and Roderick MacKinnon Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “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 “see” 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.
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.
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