“We are very honoured to welcome a gifted scientist whose work inspires important developments in pharmaceuticals. It has taken extraordinary passion and commitment of Dr Kobilka’s part in moving forward. Nobel Laureate Kobilka’s scientific journey can both inspire the talented scientists in our own country and encourage businesses to more actively cooperate with the scientific community and look for innovative solutions together,” said Daina Kleponė, the Managing Director of Enterprise Lithuania, which is organising Life Sciences Baltics for the fourth time.
Brian Kobilka shared the 2012 Nobel Chemistry Prize with Robert Lefkowitz, MD, his former mentor and a professor of medicine and of biochemistry at Duke University. After joining the Lefkowitz laboratory in the 1984, Prof. Kobilka focused on learning more about the epinephrine receptor, also known as the beta-adrenergic receptor. He was able to isolate the gene that codes for the b-adrenergic receptor. This research helped the scientists to realize that there is a whole family of receptors that look alike and function in the same manner.