Almost exactly 15 years since the Thrust supersonic car broke the sound barrier and the land speed record, last week the team behind Bloodhound SSC tested the rocket system that they hope will break that record.

The Bloodhound engine roars into life © Stefan Marjoram

Based at RAF St Mawgan in Newquay, UK, the test brought together hundreds of engineers, sponsors, media and schoolchildren. The RAF base was chosen because of its hardened air shelters (HAS), bomb-proof hangars originally designed to protect fighter planes during the cold war. This meant that those of us gathered to watch would be well-protected if the rocket exploded.

The rocket system consisted of a Cosworth Formula One engine, a pump from a 1960s Blue Steel cruise missile, 400 litres of ultra-pure hydrogen peroxide and 180kg of solid rubber rocket fuel (HTPB). You might think that a Formula One engine would be used to power the wheels, but then Bloodhound isn’t one of the ‘small, slow cars that goes round in circles’, as its driver Andy Green describes F1 cars. In Bloodhound, that powerful engine is needed just to push the peroxide into the rocket chamber at a high enough pressure.

That peroxide is fed through a silver-plated grating to break it down into oxygen and water, releasing energy and raising the temperature to 600°C. The combination of high pressure oxygen and heat ignites the rubber fuel, burning at 3000°C and unleashing up to 27,000 pounds of thrust.

There were a lot of unknowns before the test: would the pump withstand the high pressure, would the fuel burn evenly, would the chamber withstand the high temperature? In a year’s time, Andy Green will be sitting directly in front of that rocket system and the team need to be certain that the answer to those questions is a resounding ‘yes’.

We assembled 200 metres from the rocket in a neighbouring HAS to watch the test streamed live. The atmosphere was tense as we sat in complete silence while the engineers went through the final checks and the bombproof doors closed behind us. On the screen we could see the rocket chamber pointing slightly downwards, held in place by a large concrete rig. As the engine roared into life and started pumping the peroxide, we could see the flame leaving the back of the chamber as the fuel rod ignited. The engineers then unleashed the full power of the engine, pumping the peroxide at 820psi – the equivalent pressure of four family cars sitting on your palm. At this point, for a split-second, the screen turned white as the camera tried to adjust for the brightness. This was just long enough for it to appear as if the rocket had exploded. That was always a possibility and the engineers had even said beforehand that an explosion would be better than nothing happening. Happily, the camera quickly adjusted to reveal the incredibly smooth shape of the flame bursting out of the chamber. But we didn’t need the camera to know that the rocket was burning steadily, we could feel it in the ground. The quaking of the earth and deafening roar were clear signs that the engineers had got it right.

After 10 seconds, when the fuel was exhausted, the hangar erupted in applause. We had just witnessed the largest rocket test in the UK for 20 years and it was a great success. The rocket will be tested four more times over the next year, before the first record attempt in South Africa in late 2013. But the team don’t just want to break the 763mph record; they want to smash it. In 2014 they will return to South Africa and push the car to 1000mph. Keep an eye on http://www.bloodhoundssc.com to follow them every step of the way.

Ian Le Guillou

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/10/bloodhound-rocket-test-whoosh-or-bang/

Theres a guest post on the Washington Post Answer Sheet blog by David Bernstein entitled Why are you forcing my son to take chemistry? in which the author argues against his 15-year-old sons schools requirement that all its students take a year of chemistry.

Derek Lowe provides a concise summary of the gist:

My son will not be a chemist. He will not be a scientist. A year of chemistry class will do nothing for him but make him miserable. He could be taking something else that would be doing him more good.

Bernsteins post is a slurry of claims about chemistry, secondary education, and the goals of education more generally with respect to human flourishing in other words, the kind of thing I need to take apart for close examination before responding.

So, thats what Im going to do here.

Lets start with Bernsteins account of the dawning of the horror:

I discovered that my 15-year-old son must suffer through a year of chemistry because a Committee of Ten academics was assembled in 1892 in order to standardize the curriculum (hows that for a bad idea?) and recommended that chemistry, among other subjects, be taught to everyone everywhere.

Bernstein is right that tradition is not in itself a good reason to require that all high school students take a year-long chemistry course. On the other hand, tradition is not in itself a good reason to assert that a year-long chemistry course is a wrongheaded requirement.

The author proceeds to make noises acknowledging that he is glad that someone in our society is doing chemistry, what with all the goodies it delivers to enhance our modern lifestyles. He even writes:

[M]y very own mother, who if I am lucky will never lay eyes on this article, is a chemist, and believes that chemistry is the most noble of human pursuits and doesnt understand how I, a former philosophy major, was able to eke out a living.

Read more here:
On the apparent horrors of requiring high school students to take chemistry.

It’s not often that a compound finds a use as a drug AND in fireworks and ceramic glazes – to say nothing of featuring in popular soft drinks! Get your dose of lithium carbonate in this week’s Chemistry in its element

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/17/chemistry-in-its-element-lithium-carbonate/

Speculation over who will win this year’s chemistry Nobel prize has been feverish. Is it the turn of the biologists again (an old complaint that the lack of a biology Nobel prize means those feckless biologists have to filch our prize!) à la the 2009 prize for the structure of the ribosome? Or will it be awarded for more traditional chemistry like the 2010 prize for cross-couplings? Or it could even be another one like last year’s prize for quasicrystals that came completely out of left field and surprised a lot of people. We don’t know! But, if you want to see the predictions people have been making and even the odds for them then check our blog post. Otherwise sit back, relax and we’ll soon know who’s taken the most prestigious gong in the sciences and then the nice people on the Nobel prize committee will explain why it’s important and what it all means.

Patrick Walter

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/10/watch-the-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-live-as-its-announced/

This B vitamin compound is particularly important for pregnant women, but how was that importance discovered – and what has Marmite got to do with it? Find out all about folic acid in this week’s Chemistry in its element

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/10/chemistry-in-its-element-folic-acid/

Two US researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering and mapping a key mechanism used by cells to detect and respond to the presence of hormones and other chemicals they encounter, a mechanism seen as vital to the pharmaceutical industry's development of new drugs.

The prize, which carries an 8 million krona ($1.2 million US) purse, was given to Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and the Maryland-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and to Brian Kobilka of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

The two were awarded for work on a family of proteins embedded in cell walls that detect the presence of a hormone such as adrenaline outside a cell, then conduct that information through the cell wall to a protein switch inside that touches off a cell's response.

Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

The cellular sensors, dubbed G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), help coordinate "an orchestrated response from billions of individual cells that make up our bodies" as the cells respond to an outside stimulus, said Sven Lindin, chairman of the committee awarding the chemistry prize. One such stimulus: the startling, raucous appearance of a ghoul at a Halloween haunted house.

The receptors have become prime targets for new drugs to treat a range of diseases, he added at a press conference on Wednesday announcing the award. By some estimates, roughly half of all the drugs used today rely on GCPRs as pathways for affecting the cells of interest. Armed with a knowledge of the receptor molecule's unique pattern of folds when it's triggered, he adds, pharmaceutical companies are working to develop new drugs that have fewer side effects.

The notion that cells must have some mechanism for sensing their environment emerged toward the end of the 1800s, researchers say, but no one succeeded in identifying the sensors cells use.

Indeed, "when I started doing my work 40 years ago, there was still huge skepticism as to whether things like receptors really existed even from some people who were central in pharmacology," said Dr. Lefkowitz in an interview for Nobel.org.

He found receptors by adding tiny quantities of radioactive iodine to a hormone. Once the hormone bound itself to receptors, Lefkowitz and his team could pinpoint them.

In the meantime, other researchers were trying to identify the molecular switch that triggers a cell's response once it sensed a change in the environment outside the cell. Indeed, two other American biochemists shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 for uncovering that internal switch, known as a G protein.

View post:
Chemistry Nobel Prize Could Lead to Drugs with Fewer Side Effects

Probably best enjoyed without liquid nitrogen

Reports are coming out that an 18 year old woman has had her stomach removed after drinking a ‘nitro’ cocktail given a smoky effect using liquid nitrogen. It seems that outside of labs liquid nitrogen is proving quite the star turn… from making ice cream in Camden, to being used in cocktails around the country.

These cocktails seem to come in two types, either a small amount of liquid N₂ is used to cool the drink without dilution and with added smoky effect, or much more N₂ is used to whisk up a frozen cocktail, more N₂ is then poured over for, again, that smoky effect. Basically, everyone wants a cocktail that looks like it comes from the set of an Addams family movie.

So what happened in this instance? Well, the bar isn’t commenting and its website and Facebook page are unavailable, but the wonders of cached websites suggest that the cocktails the bar serves were of the smoking but liquid variety. That at least removes the risk of super cooled ice causing burns, but I can just imagine after a few drinks you’re not going to wait for the ‘smoke’ to disappear. Peer pressure, ‘having fun’, whether it was some super cooled ice in the drink or the liquid nitrogen itself, it sounds like a recipe for disaster and in this instance it was.

I recall, as well as having fun freezing things with left over liquid nitrogen, getting some pretty serious warnings about how to use liquid nitrogen safely – don’t touch any of the pipes, use protective gloves, never take the lift with it and instead put the container in the lift and send it off, while you take the stairs. I even saw how items dipped quickly into liquid N₂ did not freeze, because they were protected by an insulating layer of gaseous N₂ (a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect), but how if left in contact for longer tissue could be frozen and destroyed.  I somehow doubt the risks of liquid nitrogen were spelled out to the poor woman in the same way they were to me and so, at the age of 18, she has lost her stomach.

But, to counter some of the more alarmist news reporting going on today, liquid N₂ is not toxic, it’s incredibly cold and used in a controlled manner it’s safe and can add drama to restaurant dining halls and labs alike. But I wouldn’t drive drunk, I wouldn’t go into the lab drunk and I’d not trust myself with liquid nitrogen when drunk.

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/08/liquid-nitrogen-not-toxic-stomach-removed/

With the Ig Nobels behind us, CW Towers now waits with bated breath for the chemistry Nobel. The prize for medicine and physiology has already been handed to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for their work on understanding what makes a stem cell different to a mature, adult cell and how an adult cell can be transformed into a stem cell. This work could help produce a limitless supply of stem cells for therapeutic purposes without some of the ethical concerns that have dogged this promising medical technology. Supplies of stem cells are currently mostly derived from human embryos.

Today was the turn of physics. And that prize was taken by David Wineland and Serge Haroche for their work controlling quantum systems. Their research is seen as a first step on the road to creating quantum computers that would use ions or atoms as quantum bits. These quantum computers would calculate not just in ones and zeros, as conventional computers do, but have an extra state, a superposition that is both a one and a zero at the same time. This extra state, which relies on the weirdness of the way the quantum world works, holds the promise of making quantum computers vastly more powerful than any even the fastest binary supercomputer in existence.

Out of the sciences this leaves just the chemistry prize to go tomorrow morning – you can watch it live on our blog. And there are plenty of predictions out there of who’s in with a chance of taking home this prestigious gong.

Paul Bracher over at ChemBark has also put together his predictions and added a few more as he’s still smarting over not having Dan Shechtman’s quasicrystals down on his list for last year’s chemistry Nobel! He makes his predictions on a whole host of criteria, including the all-important gut feeling. Clearly he thinks it’s the biologists turn (as they don’t have their own Nobel prize) and has given nuclear hormone signalling the shortest odds.

Every year Thomson Reuters also puts together its predictions by doing some number crunching using Web of Knowledge to pick out those researchers whose work has been cited the most. One of the guys behind the Thomson Reuters picks has claimed that it has the best record of anyone at picking winners – although just not in the year they make those predictions! They’ve added gold catalysis, photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide and quantum dots to their list for this year’s prize. Thomson’s says that after 11 years they’ve successfully predicted 26 Nobel laureates to date (although this also includes the other Nobel prizes) – we’ll have to wait and see how they do this year.

At the Curious Wavefunction, a whole host of predictions have been made, although he hasn’t put odds to them. Nuclear receptors again feature high up on the list. Other possibles include DNA fingerprinting, the synthesis of cholesterol-busting statin drugs and the discovery of chaperone proteins that help other proteins fold correctly.

There’s still time to have a flutter, so have a look through the list and make your own predictions! Who do you think will win the chemistry Nobel prize?

Patrick Walter

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/09/who-will-win-the-chemistry-nobel/

Tight end Jermichael Finley began the 2010 season as the featured receiver in the Green Bay Packers' offense. Then he was lost for the year with a knee injury in Week 5.

Things haven't been the same since.

Finley's 2011 season was plagued by drops during a contract year for the matchup nightmare. The Packers' scheme also reduced the emphasis on Finley. With an extension signed, Packers fans hoped Finley would blossom and reach his Pro Bowl potential in 2012. The Green Bay offense, however, has taken a step back as a unit.

Finley believes the chemistry with quarterback Aaron Rodgers is lacking.

"I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me," Finley said, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "It takes two things to get that going. So, the chemistry, I feel like we need to get that going."

Finley has 22 receptions for 198 yards and one touchdown this season. He is on pace for a career-high 70 catches, but his yards per game is down from 2011 (39.6 from 47.9). He's on pace for three touchdowns after having a career-high eight last season.

Finley had three receptions for 11 yards last week before a "slightly dislocated AC joint" in his shoulder forced him from the game. He did not practice Thursday.

Harrison: Week 6 predictions

Finley called the chemistry between he and Rodgers "OK."

"Not good enough at all," Finley said. "Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can.

Continue reading here:
Jermichael Finley: Aaron Rodgers chemistry lacking

Green Bay Packers tight end Jermichael Finley has a reputation in the teams locker room for being a player who speaks his mind freely.

Its worth wondering if Finley went a little overboard this time in comments that could come back to haunt him when discussing the struggles of the 2-3 Packers as they prepare for their showdown Sunday night with the unbeaten Texans in Houston.

According to Paul Imig of Fox Sports Wisconsin, Finley says chemistry is lacking in the Packers offense this season. Specifically, he says his chemistry with quarterback Aaron Rodgers needs work.

It's OK," Finley said, according to Imig. "Not good enough at all. Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can, but like I said, it takes two people.

I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me. So it takes two things to get that going, the chemistry. I feel we need to get that going."

Finley, who signed a contract extension in the offseason, isnt putting up the kind of numbers he has previously. Drops have plagued his game, as well, which must fall under a chemistry problem on his half.

"I think everybody's gotten lost in the (Rob) Gronkowski numbers and Jimmy Graham numbers, going for a K (1,000 yards) a year," Finley said of the leagues best tight ends a year ago. "I mean, that's unheard of. Five years ago, you'd get in the Pro Bowl (as a tight end) at 500 yards. It's just gotten lost.

"I think I'm doing fair. I think I'm doing well, doing what I'm supposed to do. I think I'm giving my all out on the field, for sure. I think I'm doing fair. I'm not doing the best I can do, of course, but hey, who said it was going to be a great year?"

Finley went on to give credit to Rodgers for taking ownership of the offenses struggles earlier this week during an appearance on ESPN Wisconsin. But then Finley went on to call the quarterback scared. Oops.

"I would say, first of all, that's a leader taking the blame on himself," Finley said. "That's what you're supposed to do as a player, like I would say it's on me. So you've got to check yourself. I think that's leadership.

Here is the original post:
Jermichael Finley cites chemistry issues with Aaron Rodgers

Two U.S. scientists have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering a primary way the billions of cells in the body sense their environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today (Oct. 10).

In groundbreaking research, Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka figured out the inner workings of so-called G-proteincoupled receptors (GPCRs). These receptors, or tiny sensors on cells, interact with the fight-or-flight hormone adrenalin (also called epinephrine), dopamine, serotonin, light, flavor and odor.

In fact, in times of stress, a type of GPCR mediates the many effects of adrenaline, including dilation of pupils, constriction of blood vessels and heart-rate increase.

"The work of Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka has helped us to understand more fullyhow our cells react to external influences such as the hormone adrenalin," Martyn Poliakoff, foreign secretary and vice president of the Royal Society, said in a statement.

"Understanding how our bodies prepare for fight or flight is just one of the applications of their work, which has also opened the door for a wide range of new, more effective drug treatments with fewer side effects," Poliakoff added.

These receptors mediate the effects of about half of all medicines, including beta-blockers, antihistamines and several psychiatric medications. GCPRs are also quite complex, and so trying to image one of them seemed an elusive goal.

In 2011, Kobilka his research team did just that, capturing an image of one GCPR called -adrenergic receptor (it binds with the hormone adrenaline) just as it was activated by the hormone and sending a signal into the cell. "This image is a molecular masterpiece the result of decades of research," according to a statement on the Nobel Prize website. [In Photos: Nobel Prize Winners 2012]

When the Royal Society called to let Kobilka know of his award it was the middle of the night for him in California he missed it. Luckily, they called again, but even then Kobilka thought it was a prank. "I thought it was some friends initially. But I don't have friends with a really good Swedish accent so then I started believing it," he said during an interview with the Nobel Prize website.

Kobilka, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and Lefkowitz, of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, will receive their Nobel Prizes on Dec. 10.

The Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine and in physics were announced Monday (Oct. 8) and Tuesday (Oct. 9), respectively; the Nobels in Literature and in Peace will be announced Thursday and Friday, respectively, with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to be announced Monday, Oct. 15.

Excerpt from:
2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awards Groundbreaking Cell Research

Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka of the United States won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for identifying a class of cell receptor, yielding vital insights into how the body works at the molecular level.

The big beneficiary of this fundamental work is medicine, the Nobel committee declared.

The pair were honoured for discovering a key component of cells called G-protein-coupled receptors and mapping how they work.

The receptors stud the surface of cells, sensitising them to light, flavour, smells and body chemicals such as adrenaline and enabling cells to communicate with each other.

About a thousand of these kinds of receptor are known to exist throughout the body. They are essential not just for physiological processes but also for response to drugs.

"About half of all medications achieve their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors," the Nobel jury said.

Understanding the receptors provides the tools for "better drugs with fewer side effects," Nobel committee member Sven Lidin said.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are known to influence everything from sight, smell and taste to blood pressure, pain tolerance and metabolism.

They tell the inside of cells about conditions on the outside of their protective plasma membranes, to which the cells can form a response -- communicating with each other and with the surrounding environment.

This explains how cardiac cells know to raise the heart rate when we are startled, for example.

Read the original post:
US pair share chemistry Nobel for cell receptors

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The relationship between Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and tight end Jermichael Finley frequently boils down to one word: chemistry.

In Finley's mind, chemistry between the two is often directly related to his personal statistics and those of the offense as a whole. With Green Bay's 2-3 record and an offense ranked 21st in the NFL in total yards and 18th in scoring, Finley believes his chemistry with Rodgers has a ways to go.

"It's OK," Finley said Wednesday. "Not good enough at all. Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can, but like I said, it takes two people."

Finley dislocated the AC joint in his right shoulder in Sunday's loss to the Colts, but he is still hoping to play this weekend when the Packers are in his home state to face the undefeated Houston Texans.

Considering that he'll be playing injured if he's cleared for the game, Finley was asked whether he can take his game to the level he wants with his shoulder the way it is.

"I can, (but) it takes two people to do that," Finley said. "And I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me. So it takes two things to get that going, the chemistry. I feel we need to get that going."

This is far from the first time Finley has raised the issue of chemistry between he and the reigning NFL MVP.

"I'm not blaming it on my offseason, but me and the QB didn't have chemistry," Finley said on June 1 following Green Bay's first OTA practice. "The routes were off sometimes, and that'll mess with your head when the ball comes."

Later in that same interview, Finley added: "I couldn't get the chemistry with the QB."

Finley, who signed a two-year, $15 million extension this offseason, is on pace for 134 fewer receiving yards than a year ago. Through five games, Finley has 22 catches for 198 yards with one touchdown and one fumble. According to ProFootballFocus.com, Finley also has five drops this season.

Excerpt from:
Finley says chemistry still an issue

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors, which are the portals by which information about the environment reaches the interior of cells and leads to their responses. About half of all drugs work by interacting with G-protein-coupled receptors

Subscribe via iTunes

Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

Read More

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors, which are the portals by which information about the environment reaches the interior of cells and leads to their responses. About half of all drugs work by interacting with G-protein-coupled receptors.

The official Nobel Prize press release:

10 October 2012

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2012 to

Robert J. Lefkowitz Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

and

Follow this link:
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Two Americans are sharing this years Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping reveal the way that many hormones and neurotransmitters and hundreds of drugs communicate with the interior of cells.

The winners, Robert J. Lefkowitz, 69, of Duke University and Brian K. Kobilka, 57, of Stanford University, were teacher and student. Both are physicians and neither has a doctorate in chemistry.

Their research, conducted over four decades, has elucidated the workings of G-protein-coupled receptors, a family with about 1,000 varieties that are involved in everything from sight and smell to the regulation of pain and heart rate.

More than one-third of all drugs on the market including beta blockers, antihistamines and opioid painkillers operate through G-protein-coupled receptors. Work in the past few years that reveals receptor structure in atomic detail may eventually lead to drugs with more precise action and fewer side effects.

In making the announcement, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the pair had made groundbreaking discoveries and called Kobilkas success last year in crystallizing a receptor at the moment it is being activated a molecular masterpiece. The two will share about $1.2 million.

With its insights both crucial to understanding cell biology and highly useful to clinical medicine, a Nobel for this field had long been predicted.

This could have been a prize in physiology or medicine, but its the chemical nature of the changes [driven by the receptors] that is being recognized here, said Bassam Shakhashiri, president of the American Chemical Society and a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

At a news conference, Lefkowitz said he and Kobilka couldnt be more different. Lefkowitz is a voluble, Bronx-accented New Yorker; Kobilka is a taciturn, small-town Minnesotan. Lefkowitz said the two had talked by Skype earlier in the day, and Lefkowitz had said Kobilkas recent work is maybe what pushed this over the line into prize-winning territory. Kobilka demurred and said Lefkowitzs work is what made his achievement possible.

What little was said was really very moving, he told the news conference, his voice catching.

Lefkowitzs research has been supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, based in Chevy Chase, since 1976 longer than any other of the institutes fellows, he said.

See the original post:
Two Americans get chemistry Nobel for elucidating cellular receptors

STOCKHOLM Americans Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals. Such studies are key for developing better drugs.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the two researchers had made groundbreaking discoveries on an important family of receptors, known as G-protein-coupled receptors.

About half of all medications act on these receptors, so learning about them will help scientists to come up with better drugs.

The human body has about 1,000 kinds of such receptors, which let it respond to a wide variety of chemical signals, like adrenaline. Some receptors are in the nose, tongue and eyes, and let us sense smells, tastes and vision.

Lefkowitz, 69, is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Kobilka, 57, is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

'My wife gave me an elbow' "I'm feeling very, very excited," Lefkowitz told a news conference in Stockholm by phone.

He said he was fast asleep when the Nobel committee called.

"I did not hear it ... I wear earplugs, so my wife gave me an elbow," he said. "And there it was. ... It was a total shock and surprise."

Lefktowitz said he had no clue that he was being considered for the Nobel Prize, though he added it has always been "a bit of a fantasy" to receive the award.

Kobilka said he found out around 2:30 a.m., after the Nobel committee called his home twice. He said he didn't get to the phone the first time, but that when he picked up the second time, he spoke to five members of the committee.

Visit link:
Americans win Nobel prize for chemistry

Americans Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka have been awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their "groundbreaking discoveries" about the "fine-tuned system of interactions between billions of cells" in the human body, the Nobel Prize committee announced this morning.

This year's winners of the Chemistry Nobel: Robert Lefkowitz (left) and Brian Kobilka.

This year's winners of the Chemistry Nobel: Robert Lefkowitz (left) and Brian Kobilka.

On Morning Edition, NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce said the scientists' work has been "hugely important" because as they have unraveled the structure of the body's "G-protein-coupled receptors," that has helped researchers see the receptors in action. And because "about half of all pharmaceuticals act on receptors," understanding how they work is important when treating diseases.

According to the Nobel committee:

"For a long time, it remained a mystery how cells could sense their environment. Scientists knew that hormones such as adrenalin had powerful effects: increasing blood pressure and making the heart beat faster. They suspected that cell surfaces contained some kind of recipient for hormones. But what these receptors actually consisted of and how they worked remained obscured for most of the 20th Century.

"Lefkowitz started to use radioactivity in 1968 in order to trace cells' receptors. He attached an iodine isotope to various hormones, and thanks to the radiation, he managed to unveil several receptors, among those a receptor for adrenalin: -adrenergic receptor. His team of researchers extracted the receptor from its hiding place in the cell wall and gained an initial understanding of how it works.

"The team achieved its next big step during the 1980s. The newly recruited Kobilka accepted the challenge to isolate the gene that codes for the -adrenergic receptor from the gigantic human genome. His creative approach allowed him to attain his goal. When the researchers analyzed the gene, they discovered that the receptor was similar to one in the eye that captures light. They realized that there is a whole family of receptors that look alike and function in the same manner.

"Today this family is referred to as G-proteincoupled receptors. About a thousand genes code for such receptors, for example, for light, flavour, odour, adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin. About half of all medications achieve their effect through G-proteincoupled receptors.

"The studies by Lefkowitz and Kobilka are crucial for understanding how G-proteincoupled receptors function. Furthermore, in 2011, Kobilka achieved another break-through; he and his research team captured an image of the -adrenergic receptor at the exact moment that it is activated by a hormone and sends a signal into the cell. This image is a molecular masterpiece the result of decades of research."

Excerpt from:
Chemistry Nobel Goes To Scientists Who Studied Body's Receptors

The US scientists who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry were able to map how cells detect and respond to chemicals they encounter.

Two US researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering and mapping a key mechanism used by cells to detect and respond to the presence of hormones and other chemicals they encounter, a mechanism seen as vital to the pharmaceutical industrys development of new drugs.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

The prize, which carries an 8 million krona ($1.2 million US) purse, was given to Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and the Maryland-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and to Brian Kobilka of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

The two were awarded for work on a family of proteins embedded in cell walls that detect the presence of a hormone such as adrenaline outside a cell, then conduct that information through the cell wall to a protein switch inside that touches off a cell's response.

The cellular sensors, dubbed G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), help coordinate "an orchestrated response from billions of individual cells that make up our bodies" as the cells respond to an outside stimulus, said Sven Lindin, chairman of the committee awarding the chemistry prize. One such stimulus: the startling, raucous appearance of a ghoul at a Halloween haunted house.

The receptors have become prime targets for new drugs to treat a range of diseases, he added at a press conference on Wednesday announcing the award. By some estimates, roughly half of all the drugs used today rely on GCPRs as pathways for affecting the cells of interest. Armed with a knowledge of the receptor molecule's unique pattern of folds when it's triggered, he adds, pharmaceutical companies are working to develop new drugs that have fewer side effects.

The notion that cells must have some mechanism for sensing their environment emerged toward the end of the 1800s, researchers say, but no one succeeded in identifying the sensors cells use.

Indeed, "when I started doing my work 40 years ago, there was still huge skepticism as to whether things like receptors really existed even from some people who were central in pharmacology," said Dr. Lefkowitz in an interview for Nobel.org.

Read more:
Chemistry Nobel could lead to drugs with fewer side effects

(Reuters) - Here is a look at the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which was awarded on Wednesday to Americans Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for "for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors".

The 2012 prize was awarded for having mapped how a family of receptors called G-protein- coupled receptors (GPCRs) work. In this family, there are receptors for adrenalin, dopamine, serotonin, light, flavor and odor. Most physiological processes depend on GPCRs. Around half of all medications act through these receptors, among them beta blockers, antihistamines and various kinds of psychiatric medications.

103 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry have been awarded to 160 laureates from 1901-2011. Frederick Sanger won the prize twice.

Only four are women. Two of the four, Marie Curie and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, won unshared Chemistry Prizes.

Some Famous Winners: The Curies were the most successful "Nobel Prize family". The husband-and-wife partnership of Marie Curie and Pierre Curie were awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Marie Curie herself won the 1911 chemistry prize. Their daughter Irne Joliot-Curie was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with her husband, Frdric Joliot.

Adolf Hitler forbade two German winners from receiving the prize, Richard Kuhn in 1938 and Adolf Butenandt in 1939.

Sources: Reuters, http://nobelprize.org. Chambers Biographical Dictionary.

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

Follow this link:
Factbox: A look at the Nobel Chemistry Prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) Americans Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals. Such studies are key for developing better drugs.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the two researchers had made groundbreaking discoveries, mainly in the 1980s, on an important family of receptors, known as G-protein-coupled receptors.

About half of all medications act on these receptors, so learning about them will help scientists to come up with better drugs.

The human body has about 1,000 kinds of such receptors, structures on the surface of cells, which let the body respond to a wide variety of chemical signals, like adrenaline. Some receptors are in the nose, tongue and eyes, and let us sense smells, tastes and light.

Lefkowitz, 69, is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Kobilka, 57, is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

Lefkowitz said he was fast asleep when the Nobel committee called, but he didn't hear it because he was wearing ear plugs. So his wife picked up the phone.

"She said, 'There's a call here for you from Stockholm,'" Lefkowitz told The Associated Press. "I knew they ain't calling to find out what the weather is like in Durham today."

He said he didn't have an "inkling" that he was being considered for the Nobel Prize.

"Initially, I expected I'd have this huge burst of excitement. But I didn't. I was comfortably numb," Lefkowitz said.

Read the rest here:
2 US scientists win Nobel chemistry prize