Alfred Goodman Gilman was born in 1941 in New Haven, Connecticut, to Alfred Gilman Sr. and Mabel Schmidt Gilman. Gilman grew up in White Plains, New York, where his father was on the faculty of The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and then later a founding chairman of the Pharmacology Department at the new Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Visits to his father's laboratory peaked his interest in biology. Gilman was also able to observe intricate pharmacological experiments designed for medical students.

In 1955 Gilman was sent to the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, a prep school for boys. Gilman was not happy about being sent away, nor did he enjoy the rigid structure of the boys' school. From there, he went on to Yale where he majored in biochemisty. Gilman describes his first laboratory project, to test Francis Crick's adapter hypothesis, as "wildly overambitious." The experience...