THE VISIT OF PROFESSOR CHEN-YUAN LEE TO THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE IN 1970 AND THE USE OF A SNAKE VENOM TOXIN TO IDENTIFY THE ACETYLCHOLINE RECEPTOR PROTEIN

Abstract

A major progress in 20th century neuroscience has been the identification of the acetylcholine nicotinic receptor, the first neurotransmitter and ligand-gated ion channel to be characterized as a protein. The work leading to this achievement, which spanned the late 1960s and early 1970s, influenced significantly, in my opinion, the evolution of methods and experimental approaches used to investigate neural activity but also our general understanding of brain functions. Circumstances were such that, perhaps, for the first time in history, disciplines as culturally separate as electrophysiology (the dry science) (Fatt, 1964; ), biochemistry (the wet science) (), and pharmacology () were joined, in a unified and rational manner, with the common goal of identifying the elementary molecular device that transforms, in the nervous system, a chemical signal into an electrical one.