Linda B Buck

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Linda B Buck
George W. Bush meets six 2004 Nobel Prize winners. Linda B. Buck is on the far left.

Linda Diane Brown Buck (born January 29, 1947 in Seattle , Washington ) is an American neurophysiologist . In 2004, together with Richard Axel , she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research into the olfactory system .

Buck has been a professor of physiology at the University of Washington in Seattle since 2003. She is a member of the Basic Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute . She previously held a professorship at Harvard Medical School .

In 1991, together with Richard Axel, she discovered how humans and animals are able to perceive and differentiate thousands of different tastes and smells. In addition, she laid the foundations for molecular genetic research into the sense of smell . In this way, insights could be gained into how the sensory perception of smells and their conversion into nerve impulses and finally into emotional responses in the brain takes place.

As a postdoc with Richard Axel , she discovered the genes that contain the templates for the olfactory receptors .

plant

Linda Buck's research deals with the question of how stimuli are transmitted to the brain . Together with Richard Axel, she concentrates on the area of ​​olfactory stimuli, i.e. on the processing of olfactory stimuli. She examines the origin and development of the olfactory receptors and the processing of olfactory stimuli in the brain and their conversion into reactions, thoughts and behavior.

The working group was able to identify a gene family of about 1000 genes associated with olfactory perception by coding for different olfactory receptors . All of these receptors are located in the olfactory mucosa and are directly connected via nerves to the olfactory bulb , i.e. the brain region that is responsible for perceiving smells. On the one hand, this region forwards the impressions to the cerebral cortex , where they are available for thought processes, and on the other hand to the limbic system , which mainly unconsciously influences feelings and moods.

Through independent studies, Axel and Buck were able to prove that each neuron controls only one type of receptor and that the identically structured receptors are distributed according to a random pattern in the olfactory mucosa, but are all perceived in the same region in the olfactory bulb. In this way, a composite olfactory sensation from different areas of the mucous membranes develops in the brain.

In addition to this work, her work deals with research into aging and the genetic influence on lifespan using the example of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans .

In 2008 and 2010, Buck retracted three papers after she and her collaborators were unable to reproduce the results of a former group member. The award of the Nobel Prize was based on other work.

appreciation

web links

Commons : Linda B. Buck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

itemizations

  1. ↑ Kenneth Chang: Nobel Laureate Retracts Two Papers Unrelated to Her Prize . In: The New York Times , September 23, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Buck, Linda B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Buck, Linda Diane Brown (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neurophysiologist, Nobel Prize winner
BIRTH DATE January 29, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle , Washington