Brian Kobilka, MD, who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on April 5.
Kobilka, professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University, will discuss structural insights into the dynamic process of GPCR activation.
His lecture will begin at 3 p.m. in room 208 Light Hall (note the non-traditional time). It is sponsored by the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics as the Earl W. Sutherland Lecture, named for Vanderbilt’s second Nobel laureate.
GPCRs conduct cellular responses to hormones and neurotransmitters and mediate the senses of sight, smell and taste. They are targets for about half of all currently prescribed medications.
Kobilka began studying GPCRs during his postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Robert Lefkowitz, MD, at Duke University, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize. He joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1990 and has used a wide variety of approaches ranging from protein crystallography to fluorescence and spectroscopy techniques to study the dynamic properties of GPCRs.
Kobilka holds the Helene Irwin Fagan Chair in Cardiology at Stanford and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
