Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and Brian Kobilka of Stanford University will share the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on molecules that help cells communicate with the outside world.
The molecules, called G-protein–coupled receptors, sit in a cell’s outer membrane and identify hormones, odor molecules and other chemicals, transmitting that information to the inside of the cell.
“They are crucially positioned to regulate virtually every known physiological process in humans,” Lefkowitz said in a telephone call with the Nobel committee October 10.