In the 1970s, Professor Schekman studied the genetic basis for vesicle formation and control.
Professor Schekman"danced around with my wife and repeatedly said'oh my god,
oh my god'" and Professor Südhof simply said"Are you serious?"?
While it was known that neurotransmitters
are released from vesicles as described by Rothman and Schekman, these vesicles only open when a nerve
cell communicates with its neighbors.
Randy Wayne Schekman(born December 30,
1948) is an American cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley and former editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
By identifying the mutated genes, Schekman identified three classes of genes that control the machinery
that determines how a cell forms and transports vesicles to maintain its health.
The process is controlled by the same genes Schekman had discovered in yeast cells, indicating
that vesicle transport has survived the evolutionary process for at least half a billion years.