UC Berkeley’s Randy Schekman awarded 2013 Nobel Prize
October 8, 2013 •
>> President Napolitano congratulates Nobel winner
Randy W. Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates the transport and secretion of proteins in our cells. He shares the prize with James E. Rothman of Yale University and Thomas C. Südhof of Stanford University.
Discoveries by Schekman about how yeasts secrete proteins led directly to the success of the biotechnology industry, which was able to coax yeasts to release useful protein drugs, such as insulin and human growth hormone. The three scientists’ research on protein transport in cells, and how cells control this trafficking to secrete hormones and enzymes, illuminated the workings of a fundamental process in cell physiology.
Schekman is UC Berkeley’s 22nd Nobel laureate, and the first to receive the prize in the area of physiology or medicine.
See the complete story, including additional links about the Nobel Prize and Schekman’s work.
