Photo: PotassiumChannel — File:Roderick MacKinnon, M.D. (cropped).jpg (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Roderick MacKinnon
born 1956 · United States · Born 1940 or later
Nobel Chemistry 2003
American biophysicist and physician who showed, atom by atom, how ion channels select and conduct potassium.
Nobel-winning work
Shared the prize with Peter Agre for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels. MacKinnon solved the X-ray structure of a potassium channel, revealing the selectivity filter that lets K⁺ ions pass millions per second while excluding smaller Na⁺ ions.
Fields
Related topics
Protein structure and function
A protein is a sequence that folds into a shape; its surface and flexibility help determine what it can bind or catalyse.
Cryo-EM, protein crystallography
Structural biologists infer molecular architecture from scattered electrons or X-ray diffraction, with distinct sample preparation and data-processing limits.