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Linda B. Buck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linda B. Buck, Ph.D., (born January 29, 1947) is an American biologist best known for her work on the olfactory system. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Richard Axel, for their work on olfactory receptors.
In their landmark paper published in 1991, Buck and Axel cloned olfactory receptors, showing that they belong to the family of G protein-coupled receptors. By analyzing rat DNA, they estimated that there were approximately one thousand different genes for olfactory receptors in the mammalian genome. This research opened the door to the genetic and molecular analysis of the mechanisms of olfaction. In their later work, Buck and Axel have shown that each olfactory receptor neuron remarkably only expresses one kind of olfactory receptor protein and that the input from all neurons expressing the same receptor is collected by a single dedicated glomerulus of the olfactory bulb.
Born in Seattle, Washington, Buck received her B.S. in psychology and microbiology in 1975 from the University of Washington, Seattle and her Ph.D. in immunology in 1980 from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She did her post-doctoral work at Columbia University under Axel. Her primary research interest is on how pheremones and odors are detected in the nose and interpreted in the brain. She is also studying the mechanisms underlying aging and the lifespan of C. elegans. She is a Full Member of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, an Affiliate Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington, Seattle and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.
- Buck L, Axel R. A novel multigene family may encode odorant receptors: a molecular basis for odor recognition. Cell 1991;65:175-87. PMID 1840504.
- Nobel Citation
- Webpage at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- Webpage at Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- BBC
- Curriculum vitae of Linda Buck
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Leland H. Hartwell / Tim Hunt / Paul Nurse (2001) • Sydney Brenner / H. Robert Horvitz / John E. Sulston (2002) • Paul Lauterbur / Peter Mansfield (2003) • Richard Axel / Linda B. Buck (2004) • Barry Marshall / Robin Warren (2005) • Andrew Fire / Craig Mello (2006) • Mario Capecchi / Martin Evans / Oliver Smithies (2007) |
Categories: 1947 births | Living people | American neuroscientists | Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine | Members and associates of the United States National Academy of Sciences | University of Washington alumni | University of Washington faculty | Howard Hughes Medical Investigators | Women scientists | Women neuroscientists