Biografia Robert J. Lefkowitz En Ingles

Robert J. Lefkowitz
Dr. Lefkowitz was born on April 15, 1943 in New York City. He was an undergraduate at Columbia College from which he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1962. He graduated fromColumbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1966 with an M.D. Degree. After serving an internship and one year of general medical residency at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, heserved as a Clinical and Research Associate at the National Institutes of Health from 1968 to 1970. From 1970 to 1973 he was at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where hecompleted his medical residency and research and clinical training in cardiovascular disease. Upon completing this training in 1973, he was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine and AssistantProfessor of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. In 1977 he was promoted to Professor of Medicine and in 1982 to James B. Duke Professor of Medicine at Duke University. He is also Professorof Biochemistry. He has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1976 and was an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association from 1973-1976. Lefkowitz studiesreceptor biology and signal transduction and is most well known for his detailed characterizations of the sequence, structure and function of the β-adrenergic and related receptors and for thediscovery and characterization of the two families of proteins which regulate them, the G-protein coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) and β-arrestins. Lefkowitz made a remarkable contribution in the mid-1980swhen he and his colleagues cloned the gene first for the β-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This ledto the seminal discovery that all G protein-coupled receptors (which include the β-adrenergic receptor) have a very similar molecular structure. The structure is defined by an amino acid sequence...