Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. | Academy of Achievement

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Lefkowitz, M.D. | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content="When Dr. Robert Lefkowitz began his research career in the late 1960s, it was already known that hormones such as adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin stimulate specific responses in the cells of human beings and other organisms. But the mechanism by which cells perceive and respond to these hormones was shrouded in mystery. In 1969, Lefkowitz successfully attached a radioactive isotope of iodine to a form of the hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone), enabling him to demonstrate its receptor's presence in cell membranes from an adrenal cortical tumor. Beginning in the early 1970s he began applying similar methodology to studying the receptors for adrenaline called adrenergic receptors. Over the next 15 years he would identify several different types of adrenergic receptors by utilizing these "radioligand binding techniques." In 1986, he and his associates at Duke University Medical Center succeeded in cloning and sequencing the gene for one of these receptors and found that it responds to adrenaline much as receptors in the eye register light. He has since identified a superfamily of receptor proteins present in the outer membrane of cells. Roughly half of all medications in use today depend on the action of the receptors Dr. Lefkowitz discovered; they are used to treat everything from diabetes to depression. His discovery has been recognized with nearly every honor in American science, as well as the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">When Dr. Robert Lefkowitz began his research career in the late 1960s, it was already known that hormones such as adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin stimulate specific responses in the cells of human beings and other organisms. But the mechanism by which cells perceive and respond to these hormones was shrouded in mystery.</p> <p class="inputText">In 1969, Lefkowitz successfully attached a radioactive isotope of iodine to a form of the hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone), enabling him to demonstrate its receptor's presence in cell membranes from an adrenal cortical tumor. Beginning in the early 1970s he began applying similar methodology to studying the receptors for adrenaline called adrenergic receptors. Over the next 15 years he would identify several different types of adrenergic receptors by utilizing these "radioligand binding techniques." In 1986, he and his associates at Duke University Medical Center succeeded in cloning and sequencing the gene for one of these receptors and found that it responds to adrenaline much as receptors in the eye register light. He has since identified a superfamily of receptor proteins present in the outer membrane of cells.</p> <p class="inputText">Roughly half of all medications in use today depend on the action of the receptors Dr. Lefkowitz discovered; they are used to treat everything from diabetes to depression. His discovery has been recognized with nearly every honor in American science, as well as the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2017-09-27T15:52:01+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lefkowitz-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lefkowitz-Feature-Image.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/","name":"Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2016-04-01T21:48:53+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-27T15:52:01+00:00","description":"When Dr. Robert Lefkowitz began his research career in the late 1960s, it was already known that hormones such as adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin stimulate specific responses in the cells of human beings and other organisms. But the mechanism by which cells perceive and respond to these hormones was shrouded in mystery. In 1969, Lefkowitz successfully attached a radioactive isotope of iodine to a form of the hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone), enabling him to demonstrate its receptor's presence in cell membranes from an adrenal cortical tumor. Beginning in the early 1970s he began applying similar methodology to studying the receptors for adrenaline called adrenergic receptors. Over the next 15 years he would identify several different types of adrenergic receptors by utilizing these \"radioligand binding techniques.\" In 1986, he and his associates at Duke University Medical Center succeeded in cloning and sequencing the gene for one of these receptors and found that it responds to adrenaline much as receptors in the eye register light. He has since identified a superfamily of receptor proteins present in the outer membrane of cells. Roughly half of all medications in use today depend on the action of the receptors Dr. Lefkowitz discovered; they are used to treat everything from diabetes to depression. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lefkowitz-Feature-Image.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lefkowitz-Feature-Image-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lefkowitz-Feature-Image.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-1655 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-chemist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I can say this in all honesty, it never crossed my mind that I would fail.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Pioneer in Cell Receptor Research</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> April 15, 1943 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p class="inputTextFirst">Robert Lefkowitz was born in New York City and raised in the borough of the Bronx in a high-rise apartment complex known as Parkchester. All four of his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Max, was an accountant in the garment industry; his mother, Rose, was an elementary school teacher who set high standards of academic accomplishment for her only child. Max Lefkowitz was mathematically gifted, and enjoyed teaching his son mathematical tricks and games.</p> <figure id="attachment_2553" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2553" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2553 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2553 size-full lazyload" alt="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)" width="1600" height="2400" data-sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006.jpg 1600w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2553" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors.</figcaption></figure> <p>A precocious reader, the young Robert was excited by Paul de Kruif’s <i>The Microbe Hunters</i> and enjoyed<i> Arrowsmith</i>, Sinclair Lewis’s tale of an idealistic physician. The family doctor became his role model, and he decided at an early age that he wanted to be a physician. An active Boy Scout, he also enjoyed experimenting with a chemistry set and a microscope, playing stickball in the street, and following the fortunes of the New York Yankees. After attending his local elementary and junior high schools, he won admission to the famed Bronx High School of Science, a public school that admits students on the basis of a competitive examination.</p> <p class="inputText">Then, as now, academic standards at Bronx Science were high; Lefkowitz would become the eighth graduate of the school to receive a Nobel Prize. He graduated in 1959 at the age of 16 and entered Columbia University. Although he enjoyed his classes in organic and physical chemistry, as well as an advanced seminar in biochemistry, he remained committed to his goal of studying medicine. He completed his bachelor’s degree at age 19 and entered Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. After his first year of medical school, he married Arna Gornstein and the couple quickly started a family. In the middle of his medical studies, Robert Lefkowitz became a father at age 21. Despite the demands of his family life, Lefkowitz thrived in medical school, just as he had in every other academic setting.</p> <p class="inputText">Graduating from medical school in 1966, he undertook an internship at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. For two years, he endured the grueling schedule expected of medical interns in that era, often going without sleep for two days and nights while on call at the hospital. In 1968, America’s military involvement in Vietnam was at its peak, and all young physicians were subject to compulsory military service. One avenue open to doctors with exceptional academic credentials was a commission in the United States Public Health Service. Lefkowitz received one of the coveted commissions and relocated, with his growing family, to work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. Medical research in the United States benefited enormously from the influx of talented young medical scientists in the Public Health Service during those years.</p> <p class="inputText">Dr. Lefkowitz arrived at NIH as new discoveries were disclosing the interaction of hormones and enzymes in the cells of living organisms. Many researchers discussed the possibility that individual receptor molecules somewhere in the cell membrane were responsible for detecting the presence of hormones such as adrenaline, histamine, dopamine and serotonin, but what or where these receptors could be found, or if they even existed, remained unknown.</p> <figure id="attachment_2554" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2554" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2554 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2554 size-full lazyload" alt="September 29, 2008: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz prepares to receive the National Medal of Science from U.S. President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)" width="2280" height="1744" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007.jpg 2280w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007-380x291.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007-760x581.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2554" class="wp-caption-text">2008: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz prepares to receive the National Medal of Science from President George W. Bush.</figcaption></figure> <p>For his public health research project, Lefkowitz attempted to tag the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) with a radioactive isotope of iodine to track its progress through a plasma membrane derived from a mouse tumor. Lefkowitz was inexperienced in laboratory research and the first year of his work failed to produce the hoped-for result. Until this point, Lefkowitz had excelled at every intellectual challenge, and he found the routine setbacks of scientific research deeply disturbing. At the end of the year, Lefkowitz’s father, Max, died at the age of 63. Robert Lefkowitz had enjoyed a close, supportive relationship with his father, and this loss, coming in a period of intense professional frustration, contributed to Lefkowitz’s feeling of defeat.</p> <p class="inputText">Looking forward to the end of his term with the Public Health Service, Lefkowitz planned to undertake a residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. As he began his last year at NIH, he enjoyed a major breakthrough in the laboratory. He had at last developed the binding assay for ACTH he had sought, enabling researchers to observe the movement of the hormone through the plasma membrane. He published his first scientific papers and presented his findings at national medical conferences.</p> <p class="inputText">After fulfilling his commitment to the Public Health Service, Dr. Lefkowitz moved to Boston with his family, as planned, to take up his residency at Massachusetts General. Although he enjoyed the return to clinical practice, he soon missed the atmosphere of the laboratory and the pursuit of the unknown. After the first six months of residency, he was expected to choose an area of clinical practice for further study and undertake two years of additional training in cardiology, but he broke with the hospital’s rules for resident physicians and took a research position in the hospital’s cardiology laboratory.</p> <figure id="attachment_2555" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2555" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2555 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2555 size-full lazyload" alt="October 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues celebrate the announcement of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/Raleigh News &amp; Observer)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008.jpg 2280w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2555" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues celebrate the announcement of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Still fascinated by the possibility of discovering the elusive receptors he had first considered at NIH, he saw the potential for a whole new field of research. The first beta blocker had recently been approved for clinical use in the United States. Beta blockers (also known as “beta adrenergic antagonists”) interfere with the cell’s ability to respond to adrenaline, but the mechanism by which they accomplish this was not understood. Lefkowitz suspected that these drugs prevent adrenaline from interacting with a specific protein in the cell wall. In 1971, he began his hunt for this hypothetical “adrenergic receptor.” Finding such receptors — and determining their composition, properties and function — would occupy him for the next 40 years.</p> <p class="inputText">Applying the radioactive techniques he had pioneered at NIH, Lefkowitz attempted the receptor for adrenaline, but developing the necessary research techniques and testing hundreds of thousands of possible receptor molecules would take many more years. Lefkowitz had to divide his time between his research and his ongoing duties as a medical resident and cardiology fellow at Massachusetts General. The fourth of his five children was born in 1971, and Lefkowitz took a number of part-time jobs on the side to support his family, working as an emergency room physician, as a medical examiner for insurance companies, and as team physician for a high school football team.</p> <figure id="attachment_2557" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2557" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-2557 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-2557 lazyload" alt="Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski (front, left) of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (center) during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/ Lance King)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010.jpg 2280w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2557" class="wp-caption-text">Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputText">Although his research did not yield immediate identification of the adrenergic receptor, Lefkowitz continued to publish other discoveries he was making along the way. By 1973, he had completed his fellowship in Boston and accepted an appointment as associate professor in charge of a new program in molecular cardiology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.</p> <p class="inputText">After his first year at Duke, Lefkowitz and his postdoctoral fellow Marc Caron developed the binding assays for adrenergic receptors. Now that the receptors had been found, direct study of them could proceed. In 1976, Dr. Lefkowitz was selected as an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). At the time, only 50 medical scientists in the world enjoyed the support of HHMI, which is given directly to the individual investigator, rather than to an institution or a specific project.</p> <p>Over the next decade, Dr. Lefkowitz and a succession of dedicated graduate students and postdoctoral fellows developed new tools for detecting and analyzing the receptors he had discovered. Among the many exceptional young scientists trained by Dr. Lefkowitz, a particularly notable one arrived in 1984. Brian Kobilka stayed at Duke for five years before moving on to lead a laboratory of his own at Stanford University, where he would further develop the concepts he explored with Dr. Lefkowitz.</p> <figure id="attachment_2558" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2558" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2558 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2558 size-full lazyload" alt="December 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz receives the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, as Queen Silvia and Princess Madeleine look on, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. (Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011.jpg 2280w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2558" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz receives the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, as Queen Silvia and Princess Madeleine look on, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. (Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputText">The Lefkowitz laboratory made a huge breakthrough in 1986. Having isolated one “G Protein coupled receptor” (GPCR), Lefkowitz and his team were able to clone it and decode its complete sequence of amino acids. When they checked this sequence against the database of known DNA molecules, they found that it was nearly identical to rhodopsin, the molecule that registers light and allows the eye to see. If the receptor for light and this newly discovered receptor for adrenaline could be so similar, it suddenly seemed probable that the receptors for a large number of other hormones might be as well. Within a few years they had discovered nearly a dozen such receptors. Today we can identify a family of roughly 1,000 different receptors in the human body. Mutations of some of these are known to cause both acquired and inherited diseases.</p> <p class="inputText">Dr. Lefkowitz’s discoveries have had the greatest impact on the development of new drugs. Nearly half of all prescription drugs are designed to engage the receptors that Lefkowitz identified. Beta blockers, antihistamines, ulcer drugs and others are used to treat a wide variety of disorders, including hypertension, angina, coronary disease, diabetes, anxiety and depression. Although Dr. Lefkowitz did not patent any of his early discoveries, he has founded a company called Trevena to develop a new class of drugs, based on his latest research.</p> <figure id="attachment_18791" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18791" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-18791 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-18791 lazyload" alt="Duke medical school's signature year of independent study gives students like Erin Bressler an unparalleled opportunity to investigate research, clinical, or policy interests in-depth under the guidance of leading Duke faculty. Bressler works in the lab of National Medal of Science recipient Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, noted for discovering a superfamily of cell receptors that are now the target of some 40 percent of all pharmaceuticals developed today. Lefkowitz has mentored more than 200 students in his 40 years at Duke, many of whom have gone on to be pioneers in their own right--including medical school deans, biotech CEOs, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, members of the National Academy of Sciences, and more. (Duke Photography)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003.jpg 2280w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18791" class="wp-caption-text">Duke medical school’s signature year of independent study gives students like Erin Bressler an unparalleled opportunity to investigate research, clinical, or policy interests in-depth under the guidance of leading Duke faculty. Bressler works in the lab of National Medal of Science recipient Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., noted for discovering a superfamily of cell receptors that are now the target of some 40 percent of all pharmaceuticals developed today. Lefkowitz has mentored more than 200 students in his 40 years at Duke, many of whom have gone on to be pioneers in their own right — including medical school deans, biotech CEOs, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, members of the National Academy of Sciences, and more. (Duke Photography)</figcaption></figure> <p>Robert and Arna Lefkowitz had five children between 1964 and 1975. The marriage ended in divorce, and both partners have remarried; Robert Lefkowitz married Lynn Tilley in 1991. After years of working a relentlessly demanding schedule, Robert Lefkowitz was diagnosed with angina at age 50. There was a strong history of coronary artery disease in his family, and he has made a number of adjustments in his way of life. Since undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in 1994, he has managed his condition with medication and daily exercise, and by observing a vegetarian diet. In 2003, he discontinued teaching rounds and clinical work to focus entirely on research. That same year, 100 of his former students returned to Durham to celebrate his 60th birthday.</p> <p class="inputText">Today, Robert Lefkowitz is the James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. He is still an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Although there are now more than 300 HHMI investigators, as of 2014, Dr. Lefkowitz was one of the two longest serving investigators.</p> <figure id="attachment_2320" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2320" style="width: 2507px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2320 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/127-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2320 size-full lazyload" alt="Dr. Francis Collins (L), Director of the National Institutes of Health, presents Dr. Robert Lefkowitz with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" width="2507" height="1790" data-sizes="(max-width: 2507px) 100vw, 2507px" data-srcset="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/127-1.jpg 2507w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/127-1-380x271.jpg 380w, /web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/127-1-760x543.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/127-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-2320" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, presents Dr. Robert Lefkowitz with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, California.</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputText">Dr. Lefkowitz has received almost every major award in American science, including the National Medal of Science and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award, as well as honors from the American Heart Association, Canada’s Gairdner Foundation and the Grand Prix of the Institut de France. For a number of years his name had been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. He was caught off guard when he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012. The award was shared with his former student and longtime collaborator, Dr. Brian Kobilka of Stanford University. When he traveled to Stockholm, Sweden to accept the award, he was accompanied by his wife, Lynn, all five of his children and two of his five grandchildren. More than 40 of his former students flew to Stockholm at their own expense to celebrate the occasion.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200812072222im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2014 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.chemist">Chemist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> April 15, 1943 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">When Dr. Robert Lefkowitz began his research career in the late 1960s, it was already known that hormones such as adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin stimulate specific responses in the cells of human beings and other organisms. But the mechanism by which cells perceive and respond to these hormones was shrouded in mystery.</p> <p class="inputText">In 1969, Lefkowitz successfully attached a radioactive isotope of iodine to a form of the hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone), enabling him to demonstrate its receptor’s presence in cell membranes from an adrenal cortical tumor. Beginning in the early 1970s he began applying similar methodology to studying the receptors for adrenaline called adrenergic receptors. Over the next 15 years he would identify several different types of adrenergic receptors by utilizing these “radioligand binding techniques.” In 1986, he and his associates at Duke University Medical Center succeeded in cloning and sequencing the gene for one of these receptors and found that it responds to adrenaline much as receptors in the eye register light. He has since identified a superfamily of receptor proteins present in the outer membrane of cells.</p> <p class="inputText">Roughly half of all medications in use today depend on the action of the receptors Dr. Lefkowitz discovered; they are used to treat everything from diabetes to depression. His discovery has been recognized with nearly every honor in American science, as well as the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/MFEF2FWS3fQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=3516&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_50_27_14.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_50_27_14.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Pioneer in Cell Receptor Research</h2> <div class="sans-2">San Francisco, California</div> <div class="sans-2">September 13, 2014</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You received the Nobel Prize for your work in receptor biology. When did you first become involved in this area of research?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ptAEFn-YMX0?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_11_14_27.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_11_14_27.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Robert Lefkowitz: In 1968, when I went to the NIH, there was no receptor biology. And in fact, there was no consensus that these receptor molecules even existed. But my two mentors there thought they might, and I was given the project of trying to develop techniques to study a particular kind of receptor for a hormone. And I didn’t realize just how challenging — since I had no perspective — I didn’t realize just how challenging and daunting that assignment was. Nobody had ever done anything like that. And, as I said, for 18 months, I flailed and failed. But I did eventually meet with a modicum of success, and started to like it and saw the value in studying receptors. I could see a vision of where that might go, although in retrospect, I had no idea just how far it could go. So when I set up my own laboratory at Duke, I decided to study receptors. But since I was now a cardiovascular physician, I chose very deliberately to study something called adrenergic receptors, which means receptors for adrenaline. These are the targets of beta blockers, which are commonly used drugs. In retrospect, that turned out to be a very felicitous choice. Of course, I had no way of knowing that then. So that’s how I got interested in it in the first place, and then I just kind of ran with it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So at the time, there wasn’t even evidence that these receptors existed?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Correct.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>That’s a remarkably courageous act, but also a very creative one, to try and open up a whole new area of biology.</b></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s2">Robert Lefkowitz: Exactly. In retrospect, yes. At that moment, I didn’t see it that way. I often tell people that if I knew then what I know now, there’s no way I would have done this, because it was so difficult as it turned out.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/fbm9eS1NFEk?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=68&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_13_31_03.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_13_31_03.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I can tell you this in all honesty. It never crossed my mind that I would fail. And I don’t know why that is. It almost seems delusional. Because there was no proof that these things even existed. And yet it was raw intuition. It just seemed to me, of course they exist. How else could it all work? And you know, I didn’t have a Ph.D. I was not a biochemist. I wasn’t anything. I was a physician. So I was kind of self-taught over the next few years. I gathered students and post-docs together and off we rode into the night to try to figure it all out. I talk about sometimes the <i>chutzpah</i> of youth. It was totally <i>chutzpahdich</i>, as we say in Yiddish. It was just filled with <i>chutzpah</i> — brazen gall that you would think you could do that. But you know, in the end it worked. And exactly why, I can’t say. I guess it was meant to be.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You had to trust that instinct.</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Yes. It’s not only that I was not filled with self-doubt. And it was not that I was an arrogant person. Even with all the failure that I had had, and with all the failure that would come my way over the next 15-20 years, it just seemed to me, it was always a question of when — not if — things would work.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You have to be very patient as a research scientist.</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: You have to have a huge tolerance for frustration and failure, which I do not innately have. Just ask my wife. I have no patience with failure. So how I survived it all, I don’t really know.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s2"><b>How did you go about proving the existence of this receptor, and why is it so important in physiology?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/wqnBrERNaZY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_31_26_07.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_31_26_07.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Robert Lefkowitz: Receptors are molecules, we now know, on cells, with which hormones and drugs interact to begin their biological actions. To give you a specific example, consider adrenaline, also known as epinephrine. Let’s say we have a patient with asthma and their airways are constricted. They can’t breathe. We give them adrenaline and the airways relax because of the smooth muscle in their airways relaxes when the adrenaline works on it. How does the adrenaline know to work on that, and to stimulate the heart, rather than to work on your nose or your retina or something like that? Well, the answer is, and what seemed obvious to me, is there must be molecules on the cells that the adrenaline would bind to, much like a key interacts with a lock, where the key would be the adrenaline, but it could be any hormone by extension. And this mystical receptor I was looking for would be like a lock on the cell, and it would fit in, and the adrenaline would then do something to that lock, open it, and things would happen in the cell. That was the idea. So how to prove this? Well, at first, there was no way to even study it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/UT2N_P9I8ak?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_09_55_28.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_09_55_28.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">The first thing we had to do was find some way to study these things. So I used — again, it’s a relatively simple idea. The idea is simple. In practice, it’s very difficult. Which was to take molecules that I had reason to believe could interact with this receptor, like beta blockers, which had just been developed, and radioactively label them and use that radioactivity as a way of following the binding, the sticking interaction of that molecule to the receptor. And then with this radioactive probe stuck to it, now I could try to isolate it, following the radioactivity as a marker. And over a period of years, we got that to work for several receptors. Then we dissolved the cell membranes, plucked the receptors out. The receptors are very rare. So for example, for every two- or 300,000 protein molecules in the cell membrane, one of them would be this receptor. So the next job was to isolate this receptor, to get rid of the 199,999 that aren’t the receptor and just get receptor. Okay, yeah, exactly. Extraordinarily difficult work, but we succeeded in doing that and showed that this one isolated molecule could do the two things that a receptor would do. First, it could bind or interact with drugs that were known to interact with that receptor. And in a way that would be predicted by the physiology. That is, if I had three things that could work on that receptor and we knew from physiological experiments that, say, drug one was better than drug two was better than drug three, then my protein should bind drug one better than two better than three. Only there weren’t just three, there were dozens. So we could test that very rigorously. So that was the first criterion. The second criterion is that binding of a drug like adrenaline to this receptor, that that receptor could now do something — stimulate the cell to do stuff. Now that was even tougher. So we came up with methods where we found cells that didn’t have adrenaline receptors. How did we know they didn’t have them? Because they couldn’t bind these radioactive probes. But they did have the response machinery, okay. Because they had receptors for other things. And then we took these receptors and by techniques that we worked out, we were able to plug them back into the outside of these cells. And now the cells responded to adrenaline. So now I knew that this pure receptor molecule that I had could do both things that you’d expect a receptor to do, interact with something like adrenaline,聽<em>and</em>聽do something to the cell.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/gWBPs-mV_vE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_22_05_03.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_22_05_03.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The next series of discoveries, after we had purified this receptor, was to do what’s called “cloning the gene.” Okay. That allows us, because of the work on DNA, which we’d been hearing a bit about at this meeting. And of course, by the ’80s this was the era when recombinant DNA was picking up steam. All based on <span class="s2">Jim Watson</span> and <span class="s2">(Francis) Crick</span>‘s original discovery — from, I guess, the ’60s — about DNA. So we were able to ultimately clone the gene for this one particular receptor and thereby deduce its complete amino acid sequence. And when we did that, we made a remarkable discovery. And the discovery was it looked just like another molecule. And that molecule is called rhodopsin, and rhodopsin is the molecule in the eye that allows you to see. And when we saw that — this was in 1986 — we realized immediately that, you know, I’ll bet there’s a huge family of receptors that all look like this. In a sense, rhodopsin is a light receptor, and it looked just like what’s called a beta adrenergic receptor, which was one of these adrenaline receptors that I was studying. I said, “If these two, so disparate in their function, look alike, what about receptors for histamine, serotonin, dopamine? You name it. I bet they all look alike.” So using the techniques that we had developed, very quickly over the next few years, we were able to get the genes for about 10 or 12 of these different receptors. And they all looked the same. I mean, they had distinct sequences, very close though. I mean, you might have 60 to 70 percent of all the amino acids would be the same. But enough were different that they did different things.</span></p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200812072222if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Ev223jyAnE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_28_41_20.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lefkowitz-Robert-INTV-2014_AA0380_01.00_28_41_20.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Meanwhile, all these technologies were being adapted by the drug companies. So the pace of drug discovery increased dramatically, because they went from testing drugs in animals to being able to use the isolated genes that we had and they could now find. And then it turned out that there were about 1,000 different members of this family, not just rhodopsin and the beta receptor and the others I mentioned, but the smell receptors. It turned out the way we smell is by substances binding to receptors in our nose that look just like these. And then it turned out the way we taste bitter and sweet looks like that. So now, you had three of the five senses working that way. Well, it turns out this family of receptors regulate virtually all processes in animals. And today about half of all the drugs used clinically around the world target one or another of these receptors. I mean, things like beta blockers or antihistamines or opiates or you name it. So the work in the end had an impact far beyond what I could have imagined in 1970, when I was just beginning to do this.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was there an “aha” moment in this great discovery about receptors?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: There were many. But probably the single biggest was, “Aha! It looks like rhodopsin.” How crazy is that? None of us expected that. So that was a true “Eureka!” Unpredicted, nobody knew it was coming.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How did you figure that out? Were you with students?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Yes. That part was simple, because there are these data banks of sequences. The sequence of rhodopsin had been determined a couple of years before. So once we had our sequence of the beta adrenergic receptor, we just compared it with that. We realized this one evening, and we were so excited. I remember calling a collaborator in New Jersey and we couldn’t find him and it was crazy. We finally got a hold of him. But we know immediately, as soon as we saw that, we understood the significance of it and the fact that there would be much work to do to prove it. But immediately, it suggested the hypothesis that there might be a huge family of these receptors, and that by getting the first one, we’d be able to get others because they looked very similar. Did I realize in that moment how broad the implications would be for medicine? No. That would take a number of years.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When did you first realize the implications?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: I think that came more gradually, over a period of the next five or six years. I would say within about five years, it was clear to me that, “Wow!” because I see the drug companies. They had been adapting our technologies right from the earliest days. So to really innovate a scientific field, you almost have to develop new technology. And that’s what we were doing. There were no ways to study receptors. So at every step of the way, through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, we were inventing technology to do that.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>And sharing it.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: And sharing it. Completely. In fact, I didn’t even patent anything. Somebody was asking me today over lunch, “Did you patent the stuff?” It was Ted Olson. And he said, “Did you patent any of that?” I said, “No.” He said, “Why not?” I said it never occurred to me. Very different today. Today we patent our discoveries. But back then, things weren’t so entrepreneurial. They weren’t so commercial.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>It sounds like, in order to have a successful, robust research lab, you have to be kind of a Pied Piper, bringing people with you to see your vision.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Yes, very much the case. Now I was listening to the talks today — just absolutely amazing — and there were these two tech networking gurus. Apparently, they’ve collaborated a bunch and done a lot of things together. But they have totally different personalities, and they were stressing that. I would stress the same thing, that there’s no one right way to do it. I tend to be very extraverted and enthusiastic.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I am kind of a Pied Piper. I would sort of bring my students and fellows along, dream these grand dreams and schemes and this and that, and somehow get them working together with me. Because many of the techniques we invented relied on the brilliance and expertise of my students and fellows, expertise that I did not have. I had a vision and I had some expertise, but there was a lot of expertise I needed that I didn’t have. But students and fellows were excited enough by what I was doing that they wanted to join the effort. So over the years we did that. In fact, one of the fellows who worked with me in the 1980s, Brian Kobilka, who’s a professor at Stanford now, would ultimately share the Nobel Prize with me. Not for the work he did with me — although that was part of it, I think — but for work he did independently here at Stanford. And his personality and mine could not be more different. We have very different styles. So that’s another thing. You have to do it your way. <span class="s2">General Petraeus</span> was just now talking about leadership and leadership styles, et cetera. My leadership style is very much about being a Pied Piper. I think any leader has to be able to bring along colleagues and the people who work for them. Because if they don’t buy in, you’ve got nothing.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So you had this very original concept, a new way of looking at science and biology. But at the same time, you have to be a team player.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: You have to put a team together. I think the days of, you know, the isolated scientist, you know, working in his or her laboratory all by themselves, that just isn’t the way it works anymore. But it’s interesting, I’m a very social person. And I often say that if I — if you put me on a desert island with all the financial support and equipment and everything that I needed to do science, I would wither and die. Because I need the stimulation of working with my students and fellows. And in a very real sense, I’ve always kind of almost viewed that as my central activity — is mentoring the students and the science — I mean, this is a bit of an overstatement. The science almost a by-product. It’s like, you know, if you’re chopping wood, you know, you’re trying to get through the tree, but you have all this sawdust that gets generated. And to me a lot of the papers that we write is almost the sawdust. I mean, mainly what I’m trying to do is shape these young people and sort of show them how I do this — this kind of thing.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>There was a beautiful line in an article in <i>The News & Observer</i> around the time of the Nobel Prize. The writer described you amidst all your grad students. He says, “He leaned back so far in his office chair that he was nearly facing the ceiling, clasped his hands over his stomach, and grinned as the force that powers his soul and his science washed over him — human contact.”</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: That’s so true. I just need that human contact. There are introverts and extraverts. Introverts are drained by social interaction. They’ve got to take a little time by themselves just to recharge their battery. I’m the opposite. My batteries get charged by interacting with my students and fellows. That is a big part of what I do.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s2"><b>General Petraeus</b></span><span class="s1"><b> talks about affirmative leadership. That’s what some of his subordinates really required. Your grad students have said you make every one of them feel like theirs is the most important research.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: That’s very important. I didn’t know I did that, until t</span><span class="s1">hey had a big 60th birthday party for me. That would have been 11 years ago at Duke. And about half of my trainees returned from around the world. I’ve trained almost 250 people in my lab. At the time it was about 200, and about 100 of them came back. And we had this — they had this — all kinds of activities. And they had this big scientific <i>festschrift</i> for me. They gave talks and they all told vignettes. And one of them told that story where he basically said that one of the things that kept him going, when he was in my lab, was no matter how dark things got, I would always convince him that his was the most important project in the lab and he had to keep going because this was it. And he said it was only after he had left the lab and he was at something with one of the other guys in the lab — and this was years later — and he was telling him that story, and this other fellow said, “Well, he always told me mine was the most important project.” And then they talked to several others. It turned out, apparently, I’d given everybody the same message. But you know, I believed it. They were all the most important projects.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How do you get through those times when there is frustration and disappointment in the lab? And how do you mentor your students to get through that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: That’s a very important question. That’s one of the most difficult things that there is. Once one is established and has his own laboratory, it’s much easier for you, as the lab chief, because there’s so many things going on in the lab, something’s working all the time. Most isn’t, but at least there’s the one thing you can hang your hat on. But for that student, that’s all they’ve got. I use humor a lot. Humor’s very important to me. There are basically two kinds of people: funny people and not funny people. Most people think I’m pretty funny. I don’t tell jokes, but I have an offbeat perspective on things. So I try to use humor a lot.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Often, for example, somebody’s experiments aren’t working, a graduate student. They’ll tell me and we’ll talk about it. And I’ll look at him and I’ll say something along the lines of, “Now look, I know it doesn’t look good right now. But here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to put your best people on this. Your whole team.” And he’ll say, “But I don’t have a team. I’m just a graduate student.” But then they’ll laugh. They’ll realize how totally absurd that is. And I play all kinds of games with them. And, yeah, I use humor a lot. That helps the suffering. For example, something I’ve been doing the last few years that I got into totally spontaneously. We were collaborating with a pharmaceutical company. And the culture in pharma is totally different than the culture in academia in many ways. So we were having the first of several teleconferences with this company, and we get on the phone and I have them on speaker and they have me on speaker. I’ve got four or five of my students and post-docs with me who are going to be involved in the project. And the guy at the other end of the phone who’s like, who knows, the Executive Vice President for God-knows-what, says, “Well, before we get started, I’d like to introduce my team. I have Dr. So-and-So who’s head of Synthetic Chemistry, Dr. So-and-So who’s head of Medicinal Chemistry, and So-and-So is head of Pharmacology, and whatever.” I say, “Well, let me introduce my team.” Just off the top of my head, I point to my first guy over here who’s a graduate student. I said, “I’d like to introduce Dr. So-and-So, who’s head of computational biology in my group.” Now the only thing that was true is that this guy is doing a project that had something to do with computational biology. And then I introduced the next guy, who’s a post-doc who just started, who did have a Ph.D. in chemistry anyway. And I said, “The head of my synthetic chemistry division is So-and-So.” And of course, the people in the lab are trying to stifle their laughter. Meanwhile, these guys are none the wiser. So we had a lot of fun with that. Two weeks later, we were starting another collaboration with another company. I had some of the same people in my office. We went through the same drill, only I changed the titles. The guy who was head of computational biology last week was now a head of pharmacology. You know, you sort of have fun with it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I think the humor helps a lot. Plus, very important, even when I myself am really frustrated and down, I never let them see it. Because I feel it’s my job to sort of keep things upbeat, et cetera. But it is very, very difficult because failure is our constant companion. I often repeat to them something that — not my mentor, but a senior scientist at the NIH — said to me once. We were having lunch together. I was despondent, despondent because nothing had worked. I had been there a year. And this guy said to me, “Look,” he said, “do you know the difference, Bob, between an average scientist and a world class scientist?” I said no. He said, “Here’s what it is.” He said, “For the average scientist, maybe one percent of their experiments work. But for the world class guy, the world beater, it could be as high as one-and-a-half or two percent.” And then that really stuck with me because it’s really true. It’s that little difference. But still 98 percent doesn’t work, even if you’re winning the Nobel Prize.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So patience is really a big deal.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: It is, and I’m not a patient person. We all have certain gifts and we all have certain deficiencies. Patience is not a gift that comes naturally to me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You have high expectations of your grad students.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Yes, I do.聽</span><span class="s1">I guess that comes from my mother. She had very high expectations of me. I have very high expectations of me. And I have very high expectations of anybody who works for me. But — and this is a big but — I don’t have the same expectations of everyone. So when somebody comes to work with me, I don’t really know what I’m getting as a student or fellow. How can I? It’s like, can you really know somebody when you marry them what they’ll be like ten years later? You don’t know until you live with somebody. But you can’t live with them to hire them. They come for an interview, right? You spend a few hours. You’ve got some letters of recommendation and you make your decision. Then you got ’em, and you don’t really know. But I get to know them very, very well, and that happens very quickly. Now once I understand what I got, then I begin to form expectations. I mean, you can’t take somebody — I’m much like a coach in that regard. You know, basketball is big at Duke University. We’ve got Coach K., a fabulous basketball team. So in a certain sense, part of my work is as a coach. So let’s say — I don’t know if you know anything about basketball — let’s say I got a guy who’s 5’3″ who’s really quick. I don’t make him a center, okay? Let’s say I got a guy who’s 7’1″, got a great hook shot, can dunk, but very slow afoot. I don’t make him a shooting guard, okay. So you got to work with what you got. And, you know, some people are brilliant, some are less gifted. Some people are beautiful experimentalists, but they’re not very good at synthesizing things. Some people are the opposite. So you’ve got to learn to put people in positions where they can succeed by playing to their strengths. So I have different levels of expectations. And if I realize in the fullness of time that I have somebody who maybe isn’t all that gifted, I can’t have the same expectations. It’s not fair to them and it’ll frustrate the hell out of me. So it’s very important that I learn to really understand each of my trainees.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you gave your Nobel speech, a journalist counted that you used the words “we” or “us” more than 50 times, mentioning other scientists by name. You’re very generous in this, but you truly believe that your students and your peers help you accomplish what you’ve accomplished.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Not just help, but were an integral part of it.聽</span><span class="s1">For the most part, prizes like the Nobel Prize are, in my mind — what’s the word? — symbolic. You give it to an individual, but it’s really a team effort. The extreme case was probably the physics prize last year for the Higgs boson, where they gave it to three guys. But, as I understand it, the discovery that proved this thing existed involved two teams, each with 3,000 physicists. So that’s sort of, to me, the limit case. But you can’t give it to 3,000 people. So yes, I mentioned 50 people, and I probably should have mentioned another 50. But I was trying to distribute the credit as widely as I could. I had a very touching experience that relates to just that thing. Remarkably, many of my alumni came to the Nobel. They came on their own nickel. They had to pay for themselves to get there. These are people who were alumni of the lab from around the world. They could not come to the ceremony or the banquet, because you only get 14 tickets and I have a big family. You know, I have hundreds of alumni. But they came just to be there and be part of it. And of course, I shared the prize with one of them. So we had a big reception, Brian and I, for about 70 or 80 who were there, amazingly. Most of whom, of course, were from my lab.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Flying to Europe.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: They flew to Stockholm just to be there. They came to the lecture. The Nobel lectures are open to the public. And then they watched the ceremonies from various sports bars and the hotel and various people’s rooms, et cetera. Well, at the ceremony — at the lecture rather — was one of my fellows from the ’80s who had actually been a collaborator in the lab with Brian Kobilka, had done very important work. And he’s gone on to a nice career in academia, not a stellar one. He’s had a difficult personal journey, in that his wife died of breast cancer along the way and he was left to raise their two daughters alone. I had not seen him for probably 15 years before the Nobel. But he was there with his two daughters — now I think 18 and 16, or 20 and 18 — one of whom wants to be a scientist. And he took me — and I didn’t even know they were in the audience until afterwards. And I had called — he was one of the 50 I called out by name and showed one of the things he had done back 30 years ago. And he came over to me afterwards and he said — he says, “I just want to thank you for that,” he says. “If you knew what it meant to my daughters to hear my name mentioned.” And yeah. So they understood what their father had done for the very first time. And that meant a lot to me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>It’s an amazing image. Practically a whole plane full of your former students and fans. It’s remarkable.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: It was amazing to me. In fact, I have a slide of that that I show all the time. And Brian is next to me.聽</span><span class="s1">The last slide that I showed in my Nobel lecture, which you can see online, was a slide from my 60th birthday party, where there are about 100 of my former trainees there. The photographer took a picture of us. I’m standing in the middle. And then, just spur of the moment, he says, “Let’s do something different,” he says. He didn’t even suggest anything. All of a sudden, they lifted me up and body surfed me to the back. And I have that picture. Okay? A hundred of my trainees and I’m held up in the air like this. Okay? And to me it’s symbolic because, yeah, they held me aloft. I showed that for the last slide of my Nobel lecture, which is published. And then in the back row, I pulled out a face, which you can see in the picture, and pulled it to the side. And I said, “And now,” I said, “I want to point out one of these individuals. The slide comes out. I said, “This is Brian Kobilka. He’s your next speaker.” And I sat down. That’s how I introduced him, ’cause he lectured right after me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Could you tell us about getting the phone call, notifying you that you’d won the Nobel Prize?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Everybody loves to hear about the call and it is everything they say. It’s an amazing, life-changing experience. So the first question is, “Did I expect it?” Okay, that’s what everyone wants to know. The answer’s yes and no. Okay. Why might it be yes? Well, for 20 years people have been telling me, “You’re going to get the Prize. Why haven’t you gotten the Prize already? Are you ever going to get the Prize?” It was a constant drumbeat. In fact, I have an honor that — or distinction, I should say, that I suspect — there are a lot of Nobel Laureates here, but I’ll bet none of them, I don’t think, have this one. In 2003, almost a full decade before I won the Nobel Prize, in the <i>Durham Morning Herald</i> — and I have a slide of this, which I show in kind of a funny talk I give sometimes called, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm.” In 2003, in mid-October, after Nobel week had passed, and once again I had not won the Nobel Prize, my picture appears on the front page of the <i>Durham Herald</i>, which is the local paper in Durham, North Carolina. The headline is “Stockholm Calling? Not This Year.” And then the sub thing is, “Robert J. Lefkowitz is Duke’s best hope for the Nobel Prize.” And then a lengthy article with my picture on the front page about how once again I have failed to win the Nobel Prize.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>It’s like your mom.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Exactly. In fact.聽</span><span class="s1">In this talk, I talk about her and her pestering. And then I show this article. And then, of course, the punch line is, “How many people do you know who are on the front page of the paper for not winning the Nobel Prize?” And I don’t know anybody. Then the next slide in this talk is a picture from something called <i>The Independent</i>, I think, which is one of these throwaway newspapers that you get at the Whole Foods Market. You know, you pick them up for free. So The Independent was in the food markets the next week with a big smiling picture of me. And the headline on the front — on the front of the paper — is “Why Is This Man Smiling?” And then it says, “He Finally Won the Nobel Prize.” <i>Finally</i>. Not “He Won the Nobel Prize!” He <i>finally</i> won the Nobel Prize. Okay, so that’s the yes part. The no part, in other words, no, I — part of me wasn’t surprised that it finally happened. But the yes part is just as dramatic. First of all, I’m a physician scientist. If I was going to win the Nobel Prize, I would have thought it would have been in medicine. It never occurred to me that I might win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Second of all, their secrecy, which is much vaunted, is the real deal. There were no rumors: this year, that year. There was nothing. You know, sometimes somebody gives you a clue. “Oh, I heard them talking. You’re on the short…” Nothing, zero, nada. Now the Nobel Prizes, as you probably know, are announced in a set order every year. There’s Nobel Week. Monday is medicine, Tuesday is physics, Wednesday is chemistry, Thursday is economics, Friday is literature, Monday is peace. Monday came and went. Medicine, no call. I no longer waited for it. There was a period of time for a number of years, probably in my 50s and 60s, where I can’t say I was waiting for the call, but it wouldn’t have surprised me. But I had pretty much abandoned that. I had let go of it. For sure, I wasn’t waiting by the phone on Wednesday, which is chemistry day. But Wednesday the phone rings at 5:00 a.m. I sleep with earplugs, so I don’t hear the phone. My wife fortunately, does not. She picks it up, so she knows before I do. She hears a Swedish voice say, “Is Professor Lefkowitz there?” She gives me an elbow, which she denies, but I’m quite sure she did. She gives me the elbow and she says, “There’s somebody calling from Stockholm.” So immediately, you know right there. But my mind is racing, what the hell is this? This is Wednesday, why would they be calling me? And very quickly, this woman says, “Dr. Lefkowitz, I’d like to put on Dr. So-and-So, the Chairman of the Chemistry Nobel Prize Committee from the Royal Swedish Academy. He has some good news for you.” Well, so there you know. And the interesting thing was, I think if you were taking an EKG, I have a very slow pulse. I work out a lot, plus I take beta blockers, interesting enough. So my resting pulse is 50. It did not shoot to 100, maybe it went to 55. I did not have this amazing, you know, surge of, “Oh, my God.” It was more like this very quiet feeling of satisfaction. “Wow, it finally happened.” And the very first question I asked was, “Am I sharing this with anybody?” Because you never know what they’re going to do. And when they told me Kobilka, then I teared up. I was just — to know that I would get it with one of my students.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>But there was a downside. You missed a haircut.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: I missed a haircut. I was getting a haircut that day and it went by the boards. That was quoted widely. In fact, about three days later, I finally went for that haircut. I was on my way across campus. Of course, everybody by then knew who I was. I ran into a colleague who I didn’t know well. And he wanted to chat. And I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m late. I’m going to get a haircut.” He said, “Ah, you’re finally getting that haircut.” Because everybody knew about that haircut. Golly!</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Could you tell us about your childhood, growing up in the Bronx? That was kind of a turbulent time for the world.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: It didn’t seem very turbulent to me. I guess I was in kind of a protected environment.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I was born in 1943, and so my earliest memories date to, I guess, the late ’40s. One of my earliest is television. The very first television set in my neighborhood appeared in 1948 when I was five. And we would all gather in the apartment. Of course, I lived in a tall apartment building. And we would all gather in a friend’s apartment to watch something called <i>The Howdy Doody Show</i>, which became a real classic. Of course, in those days, there was programming on only three stations — the three major networks. And it was only from about 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. each day. The rest of the time there was a test pattern on the TV. So the programming would begin at 5:00 pm. So we would gather about ten of 5:00 and sit around, six or eight of us little kids. And we’d watch the test pattern with the tone in the background until 5:00, when a program would start. Those are the kind of memories I have. It was a totally idyllic existence. It was just fun playing with my friends. Never saw grass at all. It was all pavement. There was one park, as I recall, with a few blades of grass. But it was wonderful. I remember it as a very peaceful and happy time.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>A test pattern was just a black and white image. It didn’t move.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: That is correct. And the TV set was about this big. In fact, subsequently, a year or two later, they started selling what were basically giant magnifying glasses. So it looked like a music stand. There was a base and a pole and on the top of it was just a big magnifier. You put that in front of your tiny little TV set so now the image was a little bigger.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Now we’re going back to little TV sets again with iPhones.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Exactly. What things change?</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Tell us about your folks. What did they do when you were growing up?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: My father was an accountant and my mother was a schoolteacher. I grew up in a fairly traditional, Conservative to Orthodox Jewish home. It was a kosher home, which means I learned a lot about discipline. And it was a home that was filled with books. I learned to read very early and was somewhat precocious in my reading, loved to read. I would fake illness, particularly a stomach ache, so that I could stay home and just read books rather than go to class when I was in elementary school.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What books did you like to read?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: As I say, I was rather precocious.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mostly I liked non-fiction. I read two types of books actually. I did read some fiction. But one of the recollections I have — this would have been when I was maybe 10, 12 at the most — is in <i>The New York Times</i> book section, book review section, which would come out on Sundays. There would be advertisements for book clubs. One was called Literary Guild and the other was called Book of the Month Club. And there would be coupons that you could clip out to join the book club. And in return for joining the book club, you could pick out either a set of books or several free books, in return for which you agreed to buy some number of titles — usually three or four — in the next year. So I would clip these coupons without my parents’ knowledge, send them off, choosing sets of books that I wanted to read, which would arrive. My parents would then ask, “What’s going on here?” I would explain and then they, of course, since I was a little kid, they were stuck holding the bag to buy three or four more books, which, of course, further increased our library, which was great.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I remember, at a very young age — I look back on this now, how ridiculous this was — I bought Winston Churchill’s six-volume set <i>History of the Second World War</i>, read every book. I was probably 10 or 12 years old. And then the other one I bought was Sandburg’s four-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, and I read all of those. So I liked that kind of stuff. The other thing that I was obsessed with was anything to do with medicine, in particular medical fiction. So I had decided by the third grade that I was to be a practicing physician. It was my only goal in terms of professional life. So I must have been like eight years old when I conceived that goal. And it was based entirely on a single role model, my family physician, Dr. Feibush, who was a general practice physician in the Bronx who made house calls. I was totally taken by it. I mean, nothing seemed — I mean, it seemed to me, what could be better than to be like Dr. Feibush? He was a guy who knew all this stuff that other people didn’t know and fancy words. And he could come to the house and take the stethoscope and listen to you, and then, in an illegible hand, write these prescriptions for medicine. And then you’d feel better. What else could you want to do? So I read books, which nobody’s ever heard of anymore like — <i>Arrowsmith</i> by Sinclair Lewis, which was about a physician. There’s another one called <i>The Citadel</i> by, I think, A.J. Cronin. There was another classic. Then one that was a non-fiction title was <i>Microbe Hunters</i> by Paul De Kruif, which told the story of people like Pasteur and how they tracked down bacteria. I just loved it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>That book, <i>Microbe Hunters</i>, has been mentioned by many of the scientists we’ve interviewed.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Interesting.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>It must have been very powerful.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Oh, very powerful. Those three books. Speaking of <i>The Microbe Hunters</i>, there’s something I learned years later.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">When I won the Nobel Prize a couple of years ago, I had to write an autobiography, which appears on the Nobel website. And I was trying to come up with some memories and this and that. I was thinking about those books. And so I started going back for the first time since I was a child to look up something about those books. And I learned the interesting piece of trivia that Paul De Kruif, who was himself, I forget, a microbiologist or a scientist, and who had written <i>Microbe Hunters</i>, had actually collaborated with the author of <i>Arrowsmith</i>, Sinclair Lewis, who was a novelist. I think he maybe won the Nobel Prize for Fiction. But Paul De Kruif had actually helped him with some of the medical aspects of his classic <i>Arrowsmith</i>, which was about a physician and this and that. But yeah, that book was very powerful — <i>Microbe Hunters</i> — for many of my generation. Introduced us to the idea of science.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did your parents push you academically?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: My mother did. She was never satisfied.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">She was an elementary school teacher and very strict. And so, as I recall, she would review my homework and if I had — in those days we wrote with pencils — and I was kind of a sloppy kid and made a lot of mistakes, so I would make erasures all the time. And of course, the more I erased, the more I smudged it. She wouldn’t let it through. She’d say, “You got to write the whole thing.” And I’d say, “Mom, it’s five pages.” “No. Sorry. You got to rewrite the whole thing.” If I brought home an A minus, she wanted to know why it wasn’t an A. If I brought home an A, why wasn’t it an A plus? This never stopped. So fast-forward 40, 50 years. I’m at mid-career and I’m starting to win a number of prizes, significant prizes for my research. So whenever I would win a prize, I would call my mother up and say, “Mom, good news.” And she called me Bobby right ’til the end. She’d say, “What is it, Bobby?” And I’d say, “Well, I won a big prize.” “What is it?” And I would tell her. And she’d always say the same thing, “It’s nice, but it’s not the Nobel.” So she wasn’t happy even then. And when I finally won the Nobel, she was long gone.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>On some level, she probably knew.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Hopefully, hopefully.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So you had to go out and win the Nobel.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Right. Although it was not her goal for me to win the Nobel. Her goal was for me to come to my senses and come back to the practice of clinical medicine.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I started to become a doctor and I did become a doctor. And I went to medical school. And I did full training. I was board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. The research came later. We can talk about that. But the research came later. And she wasn’t so happy about that because she saw practicing medicine as sort of my true destiny, as in fact I had for many years. So the way she seemed to understand things is that somehow along the way, I had been seduced intellectually by some kind of research problem. And the hope was that someday I would figure that out. And with that done, I would come back to my senses and start practicing medicine again. And so whenever I would talk to her about my research, which wasn’t that often because she wasn’t all that interested in it, she would say, “Have you figured it out yet, Bobby?” The idea being that someday I would answer this damn problem and come back and start practicing medicine again. But it never happened. I tried to explain to her, “You never figure it out, Mom, because every answer raises five new questions.” But she never got that, bless her soul.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Some kids would have rebelled against that kind of pressure.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: I did not. I guess I was docile in that regard. It’s funny, I didn’t have the sense that they pressured me to go into medicine. You know, “My son, the doctor.” I didn’t get that. That seemed to me to come from me. Where she pressured me was just to perform at the very top level. Fortunately, my dad gave me no pressure at all. He was sort of the opposite. He was, “Whatever, as long as you’re happy.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You went to a high school that has produced a remarkable number of Nobel Prize winners. Can you tell us about Bronx Science High School?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: First of all, the remarkable number is eight. I am the eighth Nobel Laureate to graduate from the Bronx High School of Science. I don’t know if I have it exactly right, but if the Bronx High School of Science was a country, that would place us about 12th on the all-time list of most Nobel Prizes by a country. I may be off on that, but it’s pretty high.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve surpassed Australia and tied with Norway.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: There you go. The other seven were all in physics. So I’m the first one in chemistry. So far there’s been nobody in medicine. So it’s an amazing school. It exists to this day. I was class of ’59.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I had not been back to the Bronx High School of Science until March of this year, when at their invitation I paid a visit and spent the whole day. And it was a marvelous, marvelous day. It was the same building. My class was the first class to graduate from what at the time we called “the new building.” And that’s where they are to this day. I had a marvelous day there. I spoke to the students, and of course, at a place like Bronx High School of Science, a Nobel Laureate is like a rock star. That’s their idea of the quarterback with the most touchdowns, or whatever the analogy is. So they were really over the moon to see me. And in a very happy turn of circumstances, about half a dozen of my classmates who still live in the city, several of whom I’ve kept up with, were able to come and spend the day with me as well. It’s an amazing school. There was only one criterion for admission: how you did on a competitive examination. Nothing else. No letters of recommendation, no teachers’ recommendations, not what your average was of studies in junior high, just that exam. That’s become somewhat controversial these days since it doesn’t necessarily support the idea of diversity. But the demographics are totally different. In my day, I’d say 90 percent of my class were Jewish, immigrant Jewish descent. Today almost everybody is of Asian descent. So a totally different demographic.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What is that about?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Well, I think it’s about several things. One, I think a lot of the group that my classmates and I represented — I think a lot of them have moved out of the city. Those families are no longer in New York City. You have to be in New York City to qualify. And I think that the Asian-American culture is much like the immigrant Jewish culture was back in the ’40s and ’50s, namely very striving, trying to better themselves, and very much aware of how important education was in that regard.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Were there teachers in high school you remember that were particularly important to you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: One in particular, Mrs. Gordon. I hated her. I took AP English. The AP courses were just starting in the ’50s. And you could take a maximum of two. I took Chemistry and AP English. Today, the kids come into Duke, they have ten, 12, 15 AP courses. They start taking AP courses in their first year of high school. It’s absolutely amazing.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mrs. Gordon taught AP English. And she took a disliking to me for some reason early on, and she didn’t like the way I wrote, so she gave me very bad grades on all my essays. She pounded into me about how to write clear, effective, succinct English. And I learned those lessons well. But what I remember — and I pay her a tremendous tribute for that because there’s no more important skill, certainly for a scientist, but really for almost any profession, than to be able to express yourself clearly and succinctly. And I think she really taught me that. She actually did the following, I think, ridiculous thing. She went around the class the day before we were to take the AP exam and predicted, and wrote on the board what she thought each of us would get. I don’t know if you know anything about that scoring system. But five is the highest grade you can get, then four, and three, and two. And depending on what score you got, when you went to college the next year, you might either — if you got a top grade, you might get not just placed out of that course, but you might actually get credit for it. If you got a four, somewhere, three, less. And if you got below a three, it was like you didn’t take the course. So for many in the class, she predicted a five and some a four. And for me she predicted a three and one other kid. And then she said she would write the scores on the board in a few weeks when they came in. P.S., I got a five. And I still remember looking at her when she wrote that up there. And I could see she was not happy about it. Oh, I’m sure she was happy, but she didn’t like the idea that she had been that off the mark. Anyway, that was Mrs. Gordon.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did Mrs. Gordon live to see your Nobel Prize, by any chance?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: I do not know. She was not there when I came back to Bronx Science. Although, interestingly, my tenth grade math teacher was. Now in her 80s. She doesn’t teach anymore, but she had heard I was coming back. She keeps up with things. She actually was there. She’s amazing. At first, I didn’t remember her, because when I had her it was her first year of teaching, so she was probably like 23, 24. Now she’s like 85. So there wasn’t much resemblance.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So you ended up at Columbia, thinking pre-med.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: Straight pre-med. Absolutely, nothing else on my mind.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How did you become involved in research? Was that already your interest as an undergraduate?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Well, that’s an interesting story. That came much later.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: I was a chemistry major at Columbia College, but I had no interest in doing research, since I was pre-med. And I loved science. Loved science. Always did — biology, chemistry, all of it. But I didn’t want to do research. I went off to medical school at Columbia and we had several opportunities to do research in medical school. I passed them all up. I always did clinical electives. I never did a research elective because I had no interest in doing research and I couldn’t wait to get to the clinical stuff. So then I did two years of residency at Columbia after I graduated. So that brings us to 1968. The Vietnam War is raging. There’s a doctor draft. There’s a general draft, which is on a lottery basis. There’s also a doctor draft, which means everybody goes in for two years. So you got two years of training, internship and one year of residency and then you went in. It was a very unpopular war. Many of us did not want to go to Vietnam to serve. There were very few ways around it. One way is if you could win a commission in the United States Public Health Service, you could get assigned to something like the CDC in Atlanta or the NIH or one or two other installations and do research for two years. So I was able — because I was at the top of my class — I was able to get that commission and go to the NIH. And there I started doing research with no success whatsoever. And so for the first 18 months of my two-year assignment there, nothing I touched worked. I hated it, could not have been more miserable. My father died during that time, which was a further blow. But I had never failed at anything. I’d always been top of my class. Things tended to come easily for me and now this didn’t work at all. So the only thing that was clear to me was I would not be a scientist, which was no great loss, because I had never aspired to be one anyway. So I made arrangements to continue my clinical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is one of the Harvard affiliated hospitals, at the end of the two years. But during the last six months, things started to work, and I got my first taste of what it feels like to make some scientific discoveries and write a paper and get the attention that was involved in that. It was fun. But it was time to go off to my residency. And then I had what was one of the defining experiences of my career, which was, interestingly, sort of an anti-experience. And that was the experience over the next six months of doing full-time clinical work again, which I enjoyed, but doing no research. And I really missed it. That was the key.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What was this clinical work?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: The clinical work was intensive, acute medicine. I was a senior resident in medicine. I spent about half the time as the senior resident in the emergency room.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">An emergency room of a big city hospital like the Mass General is a wild place. And it’s all comers — medicine, surgery — whatever is coming through the door, you’re responsible for triaging it or taking care of it yourself. And it’s 12 hours on, 12 hours off. And after seven cycles of that, one 24-period off — 24-hour! And it was really intense. And you know, I loved clinical medicine. I was good at it. I enjoyed it, but boy did I miss the lab. And it wasn’t so much doing the experiments with my own hands that I missed. It was the idea of having data, having something to really chew on and analyze. This was just boom, boom, boom, boom. Almost like on a battlefield. And I really missed the research. And so ironically, the entire second six months of the residency year was elective. And you have to do clinical work, because you were paid with hospital dollars. So, in contravention of the rules, I actually went into somebody’s laboratory. The irony there was, all through medical school, I turned down research electives. And now in a situation where I couldn’t legally do them, I did it anyway. I really had to get back to the laboratory. That’s really when my research career really began to take shape. Although I was at that point by no means committed to a research career at all. In fact, several years later, when I took up my first — and as it turns out, only — faculty position at Duke in 1973, I would say at the beginning, I was probably spending about 50 percent of my time doing clinical work, doctoring, and 50 percent of the time setting up a laboratory. But that changed quickly over the next few years.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What are you most proud of looking back?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: That’s easy, my trainees.聽</span><span class="s1">In my field, receptor biology, the field is dominated by people that I trained. Kobilka is one example. I would say I have, for years — in all due modesty — I led the field. I passed that mantle to Kobilka. He has the newest technologies and this and that. But he’s just the limit case. There are dozens and dozens of people who trained with me that, if you go to any meeting on receptor biology and you look at the program, I don’t know, 30 to 40 percent of all the speakers will have either trained with me or trained with people who trained with me. They’re in the lineage. So that’s what I’m most proud of. That would be the most proud. Second most proud? Well you know, we really changed the whole — we created a field and that field has changed drug development and led to dozens of drugs, which really impact people’s lives. I really should think about that more. I don’t. Yeah.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You enabled drugs to be more precise in what they did.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: More specifically targeted, and developed infinitely more rapidly because of these technologies.聽</span><span class="s1">Drug development was so cumbersome, because the only way to have any sense of what a drug might do would be to inject it into a living animal and make all kinds of detailed physiological recordings. Now, because we can isolate the receptors and work with them either in isolation or in cells, I mean, you can screen thousands — hundreds of thousands — of compounds very quickly with these methods that we developed over the years. Now did I develop the methods so that drugs could be developed like this? No. I just wanted to know what the receptors were. And to do that, I had to develop these technologies. Which is a very interesting thing about basic research, versus what’s called translational research. I mean, the impetus to my research in the first instance was never to cure a specific disease, to change the way drugs were developed, any of it. I just wanted to know about these receptors. Do they really exist? If so, what are they like? It was just curiosity about a specific problem. But if you choose a problem well and you’re lucky, sometimes it can have big implications.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Thank you so much for talking with us today.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Robert Lefkowitz: My pleasure. That hour went by very quickly for me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Yes, it did.</b></span></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>14 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (L) receives the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, as Queen Silvia and Princess Madeleine look on, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. (Getty Images Pascal Le Segretain)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (L) receives the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, as Queen Silvia and Princess Madeleine look on, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. (Getty Images Pascal Le Segretain)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011.jpg" data-image-caption="Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/ Lance King)" data-image-copyright="Nobel Prize Ceremony - Stockholm" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-011-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski (front, left) of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (center) during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/ Lance King)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski (front, left) of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz (center) during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/ Lance King)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010.jpg" data-image-caption="October 19, 2012: Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils and his team honor Dr. Robert Lefkowitz during Countdown to Craziness at Duke University, after it was announced that Dr. Lefkowitz would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/ Lance King)" data-image-copyright="Duke Countdown to Craziness 2012" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-010-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4503816793893" title="Robert Lefkowitz's former student, and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize, Dr. Brian Kobilka, of Stanford University. They shared the award for their studies of proteins, known as G-protein coupled receptors, that enable cells to respond to external signals. (Getty Images/Kimberly White)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Robert Lefkowitz's former student, and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize, Dr. Brian Kobilka, of Stanford University. They shared the award for their studies of proteins, known as G-protein coupled receptors, that enable cells to respond to external signals. (Getty Images/Kimberly White)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-009.jpg" data-image-caption="Robert Lefkowitz's former student, and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize, Dr. Brian Kobilka, of Stanford University. They shared the award for their studies of proteins, known as G-protein coupled receptors, that enable cells to respond to external signals. (Getty Images/Kimberly White)" data-image-copyright="Two Americans From Duke And Sanford Awarded Nobel Prize In Chemistry" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-009-262x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-009-524x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="October 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues celebrate the announcement of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/Raleigh News & Observer)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - October 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues celebrate the announcement of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/Raleigh News & Observer)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008.jpg" data-image-caption="October 10, 2012: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues celebrate the announcement of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Getty Images/Raleigh News & Observer)" data-image-copyright="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-008-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.76447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007.jpg" data-image-caption="September 29, 2008: Dr. Robert Lefkowitz prepares to receive the National Medal of Science from U.S. President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)" data-image-copyright="Bush Presents National Medals Of Science And Technology And Innovation" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007-380x291.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-007-760x581.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)" data-image-copyright="168912_lefkowitz_robert032" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-006-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz discusses his work and takes questions from Academy delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz discusses his work and takes questions from Academy delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-005.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz discusses his work and takes questions from Academy delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="lef0-005" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-005-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-005-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz presents his findings to Academy honorees and delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz presents his findings to Academy honorees and delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-004.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz presents his findings to Academy honorees and delegates at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="lef0-004" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-004-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-004-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz addresses the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz addresses the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-003.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz addresses the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="lef0-003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-003-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-003-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="Dr. Francis Collins (L), Director of the National Institutes of Health, presents Dr. Robert Lefkowitz with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Francis Collins (L), Director of the National Institutes of Health, presents Dr. Robert Lefkowitz with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-002.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Francis Collins (L), Director of the National Institutes of Health, presents Dr. Robert Lefkowitz with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="lef0-002" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-002-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-002-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Achiever-Profile-Square-760.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his pioneering studies of cell receptors. (Courtesy of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz)" data-image-copyright="Achiever-Profile-Square-760" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Achiever-Profile-Square-760-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Achiever-Profile-Square-760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, of Duke University, is photographed in his lab on campus in Durham, North Carolina in 1996. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka on Wednesday, October 10, 2012, shared the Nobel Chemistry Prize for their pioneering studies on cell receptors, which enable each cell to sense its environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. (File/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, of Duke University, is photographed in his lab on campus in Durham, North Carolina in 1996. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka on Wednesday, October 10, 2012, shared the Nobel Chemistry Prize for their pioneering studies on cell receptors, which enable each cell to sense its environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. (File/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-001-2.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University is photographed in his lab on campus in Durham, North Carolina in 1996. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka, on October 10, 2012, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their pioneering studies on cell receptors, which enable each cell to sense its environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. (File/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)" data-image-copyright="Dr. Robert Lefkowitz" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-001-2-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lef0-001-2-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003.jpg" data-image-caption="Duke medical school's signature year of independent study gives students like Erin Bressler an unparalleled opportunity to investigate research, clinical, or policy interests in-depth under the guidance of leading Duke faculty. Bressler works in the lab of National Medal of Science recipient Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., noted for discovering a superfamily of cell receptors that are now the target of some 40 percent of all pharmaceuticals developed today. Lefkowitz has mentored more than 200 students in his 40 years at Duke, many of whom have gone on to be pioneers in their own right --including medical school deans, biotech CEOs, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, members of the National Academy of Sciences, and more. (Duke Photography)" data-image-copyright="016211_lefkowitz003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-016211_lefkowitz003-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-059806_leftkowitz_robert032-003.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Robert Leftkowitz photographed in his lab hallway of the Carl Building for Duke Med Magazine on Tuesday, May 9, 2006. (漏 Duke Photography)" data-image-copyright="059806_leftkowitz_robert032" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-059806_leftkowitz_robert032-003-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wp-059806_leftkowitz_robert032-003-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on September 27, 2017</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration ambitious curious " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Blackburn"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Medicine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2000</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration ambitious curious " data-year-inducted="2005" data-achiever-name="Buck"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/buc0-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/buc0-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Linda B. 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Arnold, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-roger-bannister-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Roger Bannister</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Banville</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ehud-barak/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ehud Barak</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lee-r-berger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lee R. 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Gl眉ck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Hel煤</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/clyde-tombaugh/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Clyde Tombaugh</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/alice-waters/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Alice Waters</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200812072222/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. 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