Honorary Doctor of Medicine degree to Robert J. Lefkowitz

On Monday, November 12, 2018, at 11 a.m., of the Aula Magna "Gaetano Salvatore" of the School of Medicine and Surgery via S. Pansini, 5 Naples, the Rector of the University of Naples Federico II, Gaetano Manfredi, will confer the Laurea Magistrale honoris causa in Medicine and Surgery to Robert J. Lefkowitz.

Speeches by Rector Manfredi, Luigi Califano, President School of Medicine and Surgery University of Naples Federico II, and Claudio Buccelli, Director Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences University of Naples Federico II, will introduce the ceremony.

This will be followed by the Laudatio Academica by Robert J. Lefkowitz given by Bruno Trimarco, Director of the Chair and Division of Cardiology Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences at the University, and the Lectio Magistralis by Robert J. LEFKOWITZ, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Robert Lefkowitz, a New York physician, class, 1943, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012 along with American Brian Kobilka, for studies on G-protein-coupled cell receptors.

He attended the Bronx High School of Science (which produced eight Nobel Prizes) and in 1959 moved on to Columbia College, where he first became interested in biochemistry. Because of his scientific background in the Bronx, he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1962, at the age of 19, and attended Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, earning his medical degree in 1966.

Professor Lefkowitz practices at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA, and is also a research fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His studies have always been devoted to the identification of the mechanisms of adrenergic signal transduction, the most important mediator of the Sympathetic Nervous System, which in turn is the main regulator of mammalian physiology, controlling all the functions of the various systems, especially the cardiovascular system.

In the late 1960s, he developed the first radioactive system for the identification of beta adrenergic receptors. In the mid-1980s, Robert Lefkowitz and his colleagues cloned the gene for the first receptor-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly others thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This led to the discovery of an entire family of receptors that resemble and act similarly, the "G-protein-associated receptors," or GPCRs. All GPCRs have a molecular structure defined by an amino acid sequence that winds seven times across the plasma membrane. Today we know that about 1,000 receptors in the human body belong to this same family. All of these receptors use the same basic mechanisms, and about 50 percent of all drugs used in medicine and veterinary medicine are designed to interfere with these receptors, from antihistamines to ulcer drugs to beta-blockers. Robert Lefkowitz has authored more than 750 articles indexed on Pubmed, and is among the most highly cited researchers in the fields of biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical medicine according to the Thomson Reuters ISI Index.

In December 2012, Professor Lefkowitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the King of Sweden, together with his student Brian Kobilka, for his studies on G-protein-coupled receptors.