Linda B. Buck

Linda B. Buck Linda Brown Buck (born January 29, 1947) is an American biologist, famous for sharing the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with Richard Axel, for their collaborative research on olfactory receptors. She was elected in 2002 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 2003 to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in 2006 to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, in 2008 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2009 to the European Academy of Sciences. Quotes Through the sense of smell, humans and other mammals can perceive a vast number and variety of chemicals in the external world. It is estimated that humans can sense as many as 10,000 to 100,000 chemicals as having a distinct odor. All of these “odorants” are small, volatile molecules. However, they have diverse structures and somehow those different structures are perceived as having different odors ...The sense of smell is mediated by the olfactory system, a system that is characterized by exquisite sensitivity and discriminatory power. Even a slight change in the structure of an odorant can change its perceived odor. For example, the close relative of a chemical that is perceived as pear can have the scent of an apple. In addition to odorants, the olfactory system detects pheromones, chemicals that are released from animals and act on members of the same species, stimulating hormonal changes or instinctive behaviors, such as mating or aggression. The olfactory system also detects predator odors, which can elicit innate fear responses. Unraveling the sense of smell (Nobel Lecture, December 8, 2004) Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prize 2004 267–283 https://imestar.com/content/files/u5/4q/u54qcq1ekhuk3f1n1o971na6p9e1t181.pdf (quote from p. 267) In Seattle, we are continuing to explore the mechanisms underlying odor perception as well as the means by which pheromones elicit instinctive behaviors. We have also become interested in the neural circuits that underlie innate behaviors and basic drives, such as fear, appetite, and reproduction. We are currently developing molecular techniques to uncover those circuits and to define their composite neurons and the genes they express. In a different vein, we have developed a high throughput approach in which we are using Chemical library chemical libraries to identify genes that control Ageing#Biological basis aging and Maximum lifespan lifespan, our chief interest being whether there might be a central mechanism that determines lifespan and regulates the aging of cells throughout the body. ...As a Women in science woman in science, I sincerely hope that my receiving a Nobel Prize will send a message to young women everywhere that the doors are open to them and that they should follow their dreams. Linda B. Buck – Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026 8 August 2026 nobelprize.org https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2004/buck/biographical/ Quotes about Linda B. Buck Because the odorant receptors had eluded everyone who’d gone looking for them, Buck and Richard Axel Axel decided to try a different tack—looking, instead, for the genes that encode them. At first they found nothing. But then Buck came up with what Axel has called “an extremely clever twist.” She radically narrowed the field of possible genes by making three educated assumptions about them: that they’re a multigene family; that they’re expressed only in the olfactory epithelium; and that the proteins they encode resemble Rhodopsin rhodopsin (the Receptor (biochemistry) receptor protein in the eye). “Had we employed only one of these criteria, we would have had to sort through thousands more genes,” Axel told a reporter. “This saved us years of drudgery.”Still, the breakthrough didn’t come overnight. Buck estimates she worked 15 hours a day for two and a half years on the project. Eric McHenry, https://magazine.washington.edu/feature/nobel-laureate-linda-buck-75-has-a-knack-for-asking-the-right-questions/ Nobel Laureate Linda Buck, ’75, has a knack for asking the right questions. It was a puzzle no one could solve: How does the nose detect and distinguish 10,000 different odors? But Linda Buck's curiosity—and tenacity—led her to the answer and ultimately to Stockholm. June 2006 University of Washington Magazine External links Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:Biologists from the United States Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Geneticists Category:Harvard University faculty Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Neuroscientists Category:Nobel laureates from the United States Category:Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine Category:People from Seattle Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women born in the 1940s Category:Women Nobel laureates Category:Women scientists from the United States