| RESEARCH |
For years, ion channel researchers painstakingly mutated individual amino acid residues to determine which ones were important for the proteins’ function. While others dismissed the idea of crystallizing an ion channel as too difficult—and perhaps impossible—MacKinnon jumped in headfirst, teaching himself X-ray crystallography. Just a few years later, in 1998, MacKinnon rocked the field with the first three-dimensional picture of an ion channel. “MacKinnon’s work has wrought such a breakthrough in the field of ion channels that his Nobel Prize was inevitable,” says Christopher Miller, a biochemistry professor at Brandeis. “I’m thrilled with the prize.” Since this landmark potassium channel structure, MacKinnon has figured out how this channel allows potassium ions—but not smaller sodium ions—through the membrane. He’s also solved structures of other potassium ion channels, as well as sodium and chloride ion channels. More recently, MacKinnon has shown how chemical and electrical stimuli can force ion channels to open and close. |
| UPDATE | 10.03 |
| AUTHOR | Biophysicist and self-taught X-ray crystallographer Roderick MacKinnon of Rockefeller University |
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