Image credit: Duke University Photography

Lefkowitz is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. He shares the award with Brian K. Kobilka, M.D., of Stanford University School of Medicine, for their work unveiling how an important group of receptors helps cells to sense their environment. Kobilka was a postdoctoral fellow in Lefkowitzs lab in the 1980s. Their work has driven an enormous field of pharmaceutical research and development. Their discovery of how cells receive and react to certain information has led to an entirely new direction for pharmaceutical research.

Lefkowitz and Kobilkadiscovered G-protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs, which are embedded in the cell membrane and cause important chemical cascades when a target molecule attaches to them. That target could be anything from a hormone such as adrenaline to neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Today G-coupled proteins play a role in about half of all medicines, and pharmaceuticals that bind and activate those receptors include beta-blockers, ulcer drugs, cortisone and antihistamines.

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Columbia Alumnus Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz (CC'62, P&S'66) Shares 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry