Name:
Professor Brian Kobilka HonFBPhS
Organisation:
Stanford University
Year elected:
2012
Primary professional setting:
Brian Kobilka, MD is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Hélène Irwin Fagan Chair in Cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received a Bachelor of Science Degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Duluth in 1977. He graduated from Yale University School of Medicine in 1981, and completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the Barnes Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri in 1984. From 1984–89 he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Robert Lefkowitz at Duke University. In 1990 he joined the faculty of Medicine and Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. Research in the Kobilka lab focuses on the structure and mechanism of action of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), which constitute the largest family of receptors for hormones and neurotransmitters in the human genome. In 2012, Kobilka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on GPCRs. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.