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 |
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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 |
Linda Brown Buck is an American scientist born on January 29, 1947. She is famous for her amazing discoveries about how we smell things. She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004. She shared this big award with Richard Axel. They won for their important 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's Life
Linda B. Buck was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 29, 1947. She was the middle child of three girls. Her father was an electrical engineer. He loved to invent and build things in his free time. Her mother stayed at home and enjoyed solving word puzzles. Linda's father had Irish family roots. Some of his ancestors were even part of the American Revolution. Her mother's family came from Sweden. In 1994, Linda met Roger Brent, who is also a biologist. They got married in 2006.
Linda Buck's Education
Linda Buck studied at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1975, she earned her first degree. She studied both psychology and microbiology. She is the first woman from the University of Washington to win a Nobel Prize. She then went on to get her Ph.D. degree. She studied immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She finished her Ph.D. in 1980. Her teacher was Professor Ellen Vitetta.
Her Amazing Discoveries
After finishing her studies, Linda Buck started working at Columbia University in 1980. In 1982, she joined Richard Axel's lab. She wanted to understand how our sense of smell works. She wanted to know how smells travel from our nose to our brain.
Buck and Axel studied rat genes. They found a large group of genes. These genes create over 1,000 different smell receptors. They published their exciting findings in 1991. Later that year, Buck started her own lab. This was at Harvard Medical School.
After finding out how our noses detect smells, Buck kept working. In 1993, she published more findings. She showed how signals from different smell receptors are organized in the nose. Her main goal is to learn how our noses detect smells and special chemical signals called pheromones. She also wants to know how our brain understands these signals. She is a full member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She is also a professor at the University of Washington.
Winning the Nobel Prize (2004)
In 1991, Linda Buck and Richard Axel published a very important paper. They found hundreds of genes. These genes are like instructions for making tiny sensors. These sensors are called odorant sensors. They are found in special cells in our noses.
Each sensor is a protein. When a smell attaches to it, the protein changes. This change sends an electrical signal to our brain. Different sensors react to different smells. This means certain smells send a signal from a specific sensor. Our brain then understands these different signals as specific scents.
To do this work, Buck and Axel made copies of these smell sensors. They showed that these sensors belong to a group called G protein-coupled receptors. By looking at rat DNA, they guessed there are about 1,000 different genes for smell sensors in mammals. This discovery was huge. It opened the door for scientists to study how we smell using genetics and molecular biology.
In their later work, Buck and Axel showed something amazing. Each special cell that detects smells only makes one type of smell sensor protein. Also, all the signals from cells that make the same sensor go to one special spot in the brain. This spot is called a glomerulus in the olfactory bulb.
Awards and Honors
Linda Buck has received many awards for her important work.
- Takasago Award for Research in Olfaction (1992)
- Unilever Science Award (1996)
- R.H. Wright Award in Olfactory Research (1996)
- Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research (1996)
- Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize (2002)
- Gairdner Foundation International Award (2003)
In 2005, she received the Golden Plate Award. This was from the American Academy of Achievement. She became a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2003. She also joined the Institutes of Medicine in 2006. Since 2008, she has been a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She helps choose winners for the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. In 2015, Harvard University gave her an honorary doctorate degree. She was also chosen as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
See also
In Spanish: Linda Buck para niños
