Martin Rodbell Biography

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World of Anatomy and Physiology on Martin Rodbell

Known for his part in the discovery of G-proteins, Rodbell performed groundbreaking work in cell biology, specifically advancing knowledge regarding how cells communicate. For his work in this area, Rodbell shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with scientist Alfred Gilman.

Rodbell was born on December 1, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended a special high school in Baltimore that accepted boys from all over the city and prepared students to enter college as sophomores. The school emphasized languages, and Rodbell thought he might continue his language studies when he entered Johns Hopkins University in 1943. Rodbell, however, eventually became interested in chemistry.

Rodbell served in the Navy during World War II as a radio operator in the Philippine jungles until he contracted malaria. When he came back from the war, Rodbell continued his studies at Johns Hopkins, eventually concentrating his studies in biochemistry. Rodbell received a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 1949.

After graduation, Rodbell married and moved to Seattle to start graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Seattle. He studied the chemistry of lipids (the fatty substances in cells), and his thesis was on the biosynthesis of lecithin (fats found in cell membranes) in the rat liver. Unfortunately, his thesis assertions were disproved by another scientist working on the same subject. This experience taught him not to assume that biological chemicials are pure, something that would help him later in his Nobel Prize-winning work.

Rodbell finished his Ph.D. in 1954 and then went to the University of Illinois for his post-doctoral fellowship. His research involved the biosynthesis of chloramphenicol, an antibiotic. After having taught a lecture course to freshman, only a few of whom passed his exams, Rodbell decided that teaching was not his calling. He accepted a position at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and continued his research into fats, identifying important proteins that pertained to diseases concerning lipoproteins.

In the 1960s, Rodbell returned to his original interest in cell biology and was awarded a fellowship to work at the University of Brussels. There he learned new lab techniques and enjoyed European culture with his family. He returned to the United States and accepted a position at the NIH Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases in the Nutrition and Endocrinology lab. He developed a simple procedure that would separate and purify fat cells. He was also able to remove the fat from a cell, conserving most of the structure of the cell. He named these cells "ghosts."

In several groundbreaking experiments, Rodbell and his colleagues at the NIH showed that cell communication involves three different working devices: (1) a chemical signal; (2) a "second messenger" like a hormone; and (3) a transducer, something that converts energy from one form to another. Rodbell's major contribution was in discovering that there was a transducer function. He and his colleagues also speculated that guanine nucleotides, components of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), were somehow involved in cell communication, something that would later be confirmed by Alfred Goodman, the biochemist with whom he would share the Nobel Prize. Gilman searched for the chemicals involved with guanine nucleotides and discovered the G-proteins.

G-proteins are instrumental in the fundamental workings of a cell. They allow us to see and smell by changing light and odors to chemical messages that travel to the brain. Understanding how G-proteins malfunction could lead to a better understanding of serious diseases like cholera or cancer. Scientists have already linked improperly working G-proteins to diseases like alcoholism and diabetes. Pharmaceutical companies are developing drugs that would focus on G-proteins.

Rodbell served as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 1985 until his retirement in 1994. Ironically, only a few months before receiving the Nobel Award, Rodbell opted for early retirement, because there were no funds to support the research he wanted to do. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize, Rodbell was vocal in his criticism of the government because of its unwillingness to provide adequate support for fundamental research. He criticized them for favoring projects that yield obviously tangible and potentially profitable results, like drug treatments. Rodbell's other awards include the NIH Distinguished Service Award in 1973 and the Gairdner Award in 1984.