Illustration of the US physiologist Brian Kobilka (born 1955). After receiving his MD from Yale University School of Medicine and completing his residency Kobilka joined the research group of Robert Lefkowitz at Duke University. He studied the beta2-adrenergic receptor, a type of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that binds adrenaline, identifying the gene that codes for it and determining the receptors structure. He went to develop techniques in the synthesis of protein crystals and X-ray crystallography that made it possible to study the structure of other GPCRs. Kobilka was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Lefkowitz, for this work.