Rod MacKinnon is a professor of molecular neurobiology and biophysics at the Rockefeller University in New York City and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His big idea was to use X-ray crystallography to uncover the elusive structure of ion channels – proteins that perforate our nerve cell membranes and pump ions across the membrane, allowing electrical impulses to travel along the nerve. The potential impact of his work is enormous: if all goes well, expect a new generation of treatments for cardiac problems, nerve damage, epilepsy, and hormone secretion disorders.
So there you were in a lab at…
