Earl Sutherland at Case Western Reserve University discovered cyclic AMP in 1957 as a universal secondary messenger: when a hormone binds to a cell's surface, it doesn't enter the cell itself, but instead triggers cyclic AMP inside to change the shape of proteins and carry out the hormone's effect. This finding established the concept of signal transduction, foundational to molecular biology, cellular biology, and neuroscience. Separately, in 1958 Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments invented the monolithic integrated circuit by fabricating all electrical components onto a single piece of germanium semiconductor substrate, solving what is called the tyranny of numbers and enabling the scaling of computational hardware.
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Sutherland won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1971 for the cyclic AMP discovery.
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The hosts describe the hormone-to-cyclic-AMP relationship as a two-step relay: an external hormone attaches at the cell surface, and cyclic AMP acts as the internal messenger that actually changes cell activity.
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1:43:41>> Uh forran uh acronym for formula translation 1957 discovery of cyclic ammp as a secondary messenger. >> Yeah. This was Earl Sutherland at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He identified a universal secondary messenger that relays external hormonal signals to the rest of the cell. The idea is I've got a hormone that's coming in. Let's say my pituitary gland or the adrenal gland releases some kind of hormone. How does that change the cell's activity? Well, the hormone gets attached to the cell surface, but it actually never goes through. There's a secondary messenger
1:44:22called cyclic AM that goes through and then changes the confirmational states of proteins inside the cell to do what the hormone wants. And this is something that sort of established signal transduction which is something if you're in molecular biology or cellular biology neuroscience molecular signaling is everything. And this is really where that comes from. 1971 Nobel Prize in physi in physiology. >> This is the the British are coming. The British are coming as a molecular concept. >> The Paul River Paul River >> of molecular biology biology >> 1958 invention of the monolithic
1:45:04integrated circuit. >> Yes. Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments. You remember the TI calculators that were the bane of our existence? >> Yes. 889 whatever. >> Yeah. Well, Texas Instruments was good for one thing at least, which was the monolithic integrated circuit. He fabricated all electrical components onto a single piece of germanmanium semiconductor substrate and he conquered this tyranny of numbers that allowed us to scale our computational hardware technology.