SEATTLE, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Nobel laureate Linda Buck, Ph.D.,
member of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center, has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts &
Sciences, or AAAS, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary
societies and independent policy-research centers.
She is among 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members to join
the AAAS 2008 class of fellows. Drawn from the sciences, the arts and
humanities, public affairs and the nonprofit sector, AAAS fellows are
leaders in their fields. This year's class includes Nobel laureates,
recipients of Pulitzer and Pritzker prizes, Academy and Grammy awards and
Kennedy Center honors. The latest honorees include blues guitarist B.B.
King, filmmakers Ethan and Joel Cohen, and astronomer Adam Riess, who
contributed to the discovery of dark energy in the universe. (Please see
below for link to AAAS news release and complete list of winners.)
Buck in 2004 received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her
groundbreaking work on odorant receptors and the organization of the
olfactory system -- the network responsible for our sense of smell. She
shared the honor with Richard Axel, Ph.D., of Columbia University.
Buck, who joined the Hutchinson Center faculty in 2002 after 11 years
as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, is the fifth Hutchinson
Center researcher to be elected for AAAS membership.
She was a senior postdoctoral researcher in Axel's laboratory when she
disclosed the nature of the olfactory receptors, and they co-published this
work in 1991. Their work is the first to define one of our sensory systems
in the most detailed manner possible by defining the genes and proteins
that control this remarkably complex response. This was a landmark
achievement in the study of the nervous system.
The basic principles for recognizing and remembering about 10,000
different odors have long been a mystery. In a series of pioneering
studies, Buck clarified how our olfactory system works. She discovered a
large gene family, made up of some 1,000 different genes that give rise to
an equivalent number of olfactory-receptor types. These receptors are
located on the olfactory receptor cells, which occupy a small area in the
upper part of the lining of the nose and detect the inhaled odorant
molecules.
Buck and Axel showed that every single olfactory-receptor cell produces
one and only one of the odorant receptor genes. Thus, there are as many
types of olfactory-receptor cells as there are odorant receptors.
Most odors are composed of multiple odorant molecules. Buck discovered
that each odorant molecule activates several different odorant receptors
and each odorant receptor can recognize multiple odorants, but that
different odorants -- even closely related ones -- activate different
combinations of receptors. This leads to a combinatorial code forming an
"odorant pattern" -- somewhat like the colors in a patchwork quilt or in a
mosaic. This is the basis for our ability to recognize and form memories of
approximately 10,000 different odors, as well as our ability to distinguish
odorants with nearly identical chemical structures as having different
smells.
Buck has also discovered and characterized families of receptors for
pheromones and tastes, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying
pheromone effects and taste perception.
Buck, also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and an
affiliate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the
University of Washington, is the recipient of many national and
international scientific awards. In 2003 she received the Gairdner Award,
the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize and was elected a member of the National
Academy of Sciences. She's also the recipient of the Unilever Science
Award, the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Science for Art Prize, the R.H.
Wright Award in Olfactory Research and the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for
Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research.
Other AAAS fellows at the Hutchinson Center are Lee Hartwell, Ph.D.,
president and director of the Center who in 2001 received the Nobel Prize
in physiology or medicine for his work in yeast genetics; Mark T. Groudine,
M.D., Ph.D., deputy director of the Hutchinson Center and former director
of its Basic Sciences Division; Robert Eisenman, Ph.D., a leader in the
field of oncogenes, aberrantly regulated genes that cause cancer; and the
late Harold M. Weintraub, Ph.D., an international leader in the field of
molecular biology.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other
scholar-patriots, the AAAS elects the finest minds and most influential
leaders from each generation, including George Washington, Ben Franklin,
Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
The current membership includes more than 200 Nobel laureates and more than
60 Pulitzer Prize winners.
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams
of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent,
diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers,
including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for
health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more
information, please visit fhcrc.org.
CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
SOURCE Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
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Related links:
http://www.fhcrc.org
CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward of Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center, +1-206-667-5095, kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
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