Roderick MacKinnon (born 19 February 1956 in Burlington, Massachusetts) is a professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University who in 2003 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels. (That year Peter Agre shared the prize for his independent investigations of water channels). His prize-winning research was cunducted primarily at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) of Cornell University, and at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) of Brookhaven National Laboratory. Jump to: navigation, search February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1956 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Burlington is a town located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. ... Biophysics (also biological physics) is an interdisciplinary science that applies theories and methods of the physical sciences to questions of biology. ... Rockefeller University is a small private university focusing primarily on graduate education and research in the biomedical fields, located in the southeasternmost corner of the Upper East Side of Manhattan island in New York City, New York. ... Jump to: navigation, search 2003(MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... List of Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry from 1901 to the present day. ... Another, unrelated ion channeling process is part of ion implantation. ... Peter Agre (born 1949) is an American biologist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (which he shared with Roderick MacKinnon) for his discovery of water channels. ... A water channel is an experimental tank for studying resistance and propulsion behaviour of ships, submarines, or other sea vessels. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) is a high-intensity high-energy X-ray lightsource supported by the National Science Foundation and located in Wilson Lab on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, NY. The lab provides synchrotron radiation facilities for multidiciplinary scientific research, with... Jump to: navigation, search For other uses of the name Cornell, see Cornell (disambiguation). ... Aerial view of Brookhaven National Laboratory. ...

Before MacKinnon, the detailed molecular architecture of channels and the exact means by which they convey ions remained speculative. But in 1998, despite a barrier to the structural study of integral membrane proteins that had thwarted most attempts for decades, MacKinnon and colleagues unlocked the architecture of a potassium channel from bacteria with X-ray crystallography. Science Magazine called the achievement "one of the 10 biggest science stories of 1998." Jump to: navigation, search 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Structural biology is a branch of molecular biology concerned with the study of the architecture and shape of biological macromolecules--proteins and nucleic acids in particular—and what causes them to have the structures they have. ... Integral membrane protein of the transmembrane type An Integral Membrane Protein (IMP) is a protein molecule (or assembly of proteins) that in most cases spans the biological membrane with which it is associated (especially the plasma membrane) or which, in any case, is sufficiently embedded in the membrane to remain... X-ray crystallography is a technique in crystallography in which the pattern produced by the diffraction of X-rays through the closely spaced lattice of atoms in a crystal is recorded and then analyzed to reveal the nature of that lattice. ...

In 1999, MacKinnon shared the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research -- the nation's most distinguished honor for outstanding contributions to basic and clinical medical research. The prizes were established in 1946 and are often called "America's Nobels" -- more than half of all Lasker winners since 1962 have gone on to win the Nobel Prize. Jump to: navigation, search 1999 is a common year starting on Friday Anno Domini (or the Current Era), and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is awarded by the Lasker Foundation for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of disease. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1962 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

A professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at the Rockefeller University and an investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute, MacKinnon was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2000. Biophysics (also biological physics) is an interdisciplinary science that applies theories and methods of the physical sciences to questions of biology. ... Rockefeller University is a small private university focusing primarily on graduate education and research in the biomedical fields, located in the southeasternmost corner of the Upper East Side of Manhattan island in New York City, New York. ... The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is a United States non-profit medical research institute based in Chevy Chase, Maryland and originally founded by the aviator and engineer Howard Hughes in 1953. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the year 2000. ...

He received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Brandeis University in 1978 and a medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and postdoctoral work at Brandeis with Christopher Miller. Much of his early work involved the application of scorpion toxins to potassium channel structure. Jump to: navigation, search Brandeis University is a small, private university in Waltham, Massachusetts. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... Tufts University is a private university located in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. ... A toxin, in a scientific context, is a biologically produced substance that causes injury to the health of a living thing on contact or absorption, typically by interacting with biological macromolecules such as enzymes and receptors. ...

Dr. MacKinnon has received numerous awards for his research, including the 2000 Rosenstiel Award and the 2001 Gairdner Foundation International Award. Jump to: navigation, search In 1971, the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Resarch was established as an expression of the conviction that educational institutions have an important role to play in the encouragement and development of basic science as it applies to medicine. ... Jump to: navigation, search 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

He is a member of the Alpha Omega Medical Honor Society, a PEW scholar in the BioMedical Sciences and the recipient of the McKnight Scholars Award, the Biophysical Society Young Investigator Award, the McKnight Investigator Award, the W. Alden Spencer Award and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize.

External links

• Biography
• Winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry