Curriculum vitae
Prof. Brian K. Kobilka was born on May 30, 1955, in Little Falls, Minnesota, USA. He is an American physician and molecular biologist. His research into the structure and function of cell surface molecules known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) - the largest family of signal-receiving molecules found in organisms - has contributed to significant advances in cell biology and medicine. For his discoveries, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012 together with the American physician and molecular biologist Prof. Robert J. Lefkowitz.
Prof. Kobilka graduated in biology and chemistry from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 1977 and in medicine from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 1988. Three years later, after completing an internal medicine residency at Barnes Hospital at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri, Brian Kobilka joined Lefkowitz's lab at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. There, while working as a postdoc, he reconstructed the complete DNA sequence for the mammalian beta 2 -adrenergic receptor from genomic DNA fragments that had been amplified in genetically modified bacteria. This discovery overcomes the difficulty of sequencing the receptor due to its limited natural production in cells.
