Gilman, Alfred G.

Gilman, Alfred G. (Goodman) (1941–  ) pharmacologist, educator; born in New Haven, Conn. His interest in science began at age 10 when his father, Dr.Alfred Gilman, took him to his laboratory at Albert Einstein University in New York. He went on to Yale (B.S., 1962) and then took his Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University (1969). Pursuing his specialty of pharmacology, he did research at the National Institutes of Health (1969–71) before joining the faculty at the University of Virginia (1971–81). In 1981 he went to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He is the editor of The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (1990, 8th edition), a leading textbook on pharmacology originated by his father. In 1994 Gilman shared the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology with Martin Rodbell for their discovery of G proteins, substances inside all the body's cells that transmit and modulate signals from both within the body and the outside environment. If the G proteins are not in a proper balance, it can affect vision and smell or cause diseases from cholera to cancer.