Alfred G. Gilman, pharmacologist & biochemist, Died at 74

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Alfred Goodman Gilman was born on July 1, 1941, and died on December 23, 2015.

He was an American pharmacologist and biochemist.

Alfred shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Martin Rodbell for their discoveries regarding G-proteins.

G-proteins are a vital intermediary between the extracellular activation of receptors (GPCR) on the cell membrane and actions within the cell.

Rodbell had shown in the 1960s that GTP was involved in cell signaling.

It was Alfred, who actually discovered the proteins that interacted with the GTP to initiate signalling cascades within the cell.

Alfred Gilman was born in New Haven, Connecticut.

His parents were Mabel (Schmidt) and Alfred Gilman, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine and one of the authors of the classic pharmacology textbook The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics; he chose his son’s middle name in honor of his co-author Louis S. Goodman.

Alfred served as one of the textbook’s editors from 1980 to 2000, first collaborating with, then succeeding his father and Goodman.

Alfred Gilman passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in Dallas, Texas on December 23, 2015 at the age of 74.