Linda B. Buck facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Linda Buck
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Buck in 2015
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Linda Brown Buck
January 29, 1947 Seattle, Washington, U.S.
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| Known for | Olfactory receptors |
| Spouse(s) | Roger Brent |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Rhinologist |
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| Thesis | The Expression of IgD and Lyb-2 by Murine B Lymphocytes (1980) |
| Doctoral advisor | Ellen Vitetta |
| Other academic advisors | Benvenuto Pernis Richard Axel |
Linda Brown Buck, born on January 29, 1947, is an American scientist who made amazing discoveries about how we smell. She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 with Richard Axel for their work on how our noses detect smells. Today, she works at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
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About Linda Buck
Linda B. Buck was born in Seattle, Washington. Her father was an electrical engineer who loved to invent things. Her mother enjoyed solving word puzzles. Linda was the middle child of three sisters. In 1994, she met Roger Brent, who is also a biologist. They got married in 2006.
Her Education
Linda Buck earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), in 1975. She studied psychology and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was the first woman from the University of Washington to win a Nobel Prize. In 1980, she received her Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) in immunology. She completed this degree at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Her Scientific Work
After finishing her Ph.D., Linda Buck started doing advanced research. From 1980 to 1982, she worked at Columbia University. In 1982, she joined the lab of Richard Axel at Columbia. She became very interested in how we smell things. She wanted to understand how odors travel from our noses to our brains.
Buck and Axel studied rat genes. They found a large group of genes that are responsible for making over 1,000 different odor receptors. These receptors are like tiny sensors in our noses. They published their important findings in 1991.
Later that year, Buck became a professor at Harvard Medical School. There, she started her own research lab. After discovering how odors are first detected, she continued her work. In 1993, she published more findings. These showed how the signals from different odor receptors are organized in the nose. Her main goal is to understand how our noses detect smells and special chemical signals called pheromones. She also studies how our brains then understand these signals.
Linda Buck is a full member of the Basic Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She is also a professor at the University of Washington.
Winning the Nobel Prize (2004)
In their famous paper from 1991, Linda Buck and Richard Axel made a huge discovery. They found hundreds of genes that create the odor sensors in our noses. Each sensor is a protein. When an odor molecule attaches to a sensor, the sensor changes. This change sends an electrical signal to the brain.
Different odor sensors react to different smells. This means that certain smells cause a signal from a specific sensor. Our brains then interpret these different signals as specific scents. To figure this out, Buck and Axel studied how these sensors work. They found that these sensors belong to a group of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors.
By looking at rat DNA, they guessed that mammals have about 1,000 different genes for these odor sensors. This discovery was a big step forward. It helped scientists understand how our sense of smell works at a very tiny, molecular level. In their later work, Buck and Axel showed something amazing. Each nerve cell that detects smell uses only one type of odor sensor protein. Also, all the signals from nerve cells using the same sensor go to one special area in the brain. This area is called a glomerulus in the olfactory bulb.
Awards and Honors
Linda Buck has received many awards for her important work. Some of these include:
- The Takasago Award for Research in Olfaction (1992)
- The Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award (1996)
- The Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize (2002)
- The Gairdner Foundation International Award (2003)
In 2004, she received the highest honor, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 2005, she also received the Golden Plate Award. She was chosen to be part of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2003. She also joined the Institute Of Medicine in 2006. Since 2008, she has been a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She also helps choose the winners of the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. In 2015, Harvard University gave her an honorary doctorate degree.
See also
In Spanish: Linda Buck para niños
