The 2012
Nobel prize in chemistry has gone to two US researchers whose work shed light
on how the billions of cells in our body sense their environments.
Robert
Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka, both of the US, will share the prize of 8m Swedish
kronor (£750,000; $1.2m).
Their work
focuses on what are called G protein-coupled receptors, a number of proteins
that reach through cell walls.
Understanding
how they work has been crucial to unravelling the complex network of signalling
between cells.