Category Archives: Chemistry

Green Bay Packers tight end Jermichael Finley has a reputation in the teams locker room for being a player who speaks his mind freely.

Its worth wondering if Finley went a little overboard this time in comments that could come back to haunt him when discussing the struggles of the 2-3 Packers as they prepare for their showdown Sunday night with the unbeaten Texans in Houston.

According to Paul Imig of Fox Sports Wisconsin, Finley says chemistry is lacking in the Packers offense this season. Specifically, he says his chemistry with quarterback Aaron Rodgers needs work.

It's OK," Finley said, according to Imig. "Not good enough at all. Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can, but like I said, it takes two people.

I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me. So it takes two things to get that going, the chemistry. I feel we need to get that going."

Finley, who signed a contract extension in the offseason, isnt putting up the kind of numbers he has previously. Drops have plagued his game, as well, which must fall under a chemistry problem on his half.

"I think everybody's gotten lost in the (Rob) Gronkowski numbers and Jimmy Graham numbers, going for a K (1,000 yards) a year," Finley said of the leagues best tight ends a year ago. "I mean, that's unheard of. Five years ago, you'd get in the Pro Bowl (as a tight end) at 500 yards. It's just gotten lost.

"I think I'm doing fair. I think I'm doing well, doing what I'm supposed to do. I think I'm giving my all out on the field, for sure. I think I'm doing fair. I'm not doing the best I can do, of course, but hey, who said it was going to be a great year?"

Finley went on to give credit to Rodgers for taking ownership of the offenses struggles earlier this week during an appearance on ESPN Wisconsin. But then Finley went on to call the quarterback scared. Oops.

"I would say, first of all, that's a leader taking the blame on himself," Finley said. "That's what you're supposed to do as a player, like I would say it's on me. So you've got to check yourself. I think that's leadership.

Here is the original post:
Jermichael Finley cites chemistry issues with Aaron Rodgers

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The relationship between Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and tight end Jermichael Finley frequently boils down to one word: chemistry.

In Finley's mind, chemistry between the two is often directly related to his personal statistics and those of the offense as a whole. With Green Bay's 2-3 record and an offense ranked 21st in the NFL in total yards and 18th in scoring, Finley believes his chemistry with Rodgers has a ways to go.

"It's OK," Finley said Wednesday. "Not good enough at all. Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can, but like I said, it takes two people."

Finley dislocated the AC joint in his right shoulder in Sunday's loss to the Colts, but he is still hoping to play this weekend when the Packers are in his home state to face the undefeated Houston Texans.

Considering that he'll be playing injured if he's cleared for the game, Finley was asked whether he can take his game to the level he wants with his shoulder the way it is.

"I can, (but) it takes two people to do that," Finley said. "And I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me. So it takes two things to get that going, the chemistry. I feel we need to get that going."

This is far from the first time Finley has raised the issue of chemistry between he and the reigning NFL MVP.

"I'm not blaming it on my offseason, but me and the QB didn't have chemistry," Finley said on June 1 following Green Bay's first OTA practice. "The routes were off sometimes, and that'll mess with your head when the ball comes."

Later in that same interview, Finley added: "I couldn't get the chemistry with the QB."

Finley, who signed a two-year, $15 million extension this offseason, is on pace for 134 fewer receiving yards than a year ago. Through five games, Finley has 22 catches for 198 yards with one touchdown and one fumble. According to ProFootballFocus.com, Finley also has five drops this season.

Excerpt from:
Finley says chemistry still an issue

Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka of the United States won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for identifying a class of cell receptor, yielding vital insights into how the body works at the molecular level.

The big beneficiary of this fundamental work is medicine, the Nobel committee declared.

The pair were honoured for discovering a key component of cells called G-protein-coupled receptors and mapping how they work.

The receptors stud the surface of cells, sensitising them to light, flavour, smells and body chemicals such as adrenaline and enabling cells to communicate with each other.

About a thousand of these kinds of receptor are known to exist throughout the body. They are essential not just for physiological processes but also for response to drugs.

"About half of all medications achieve their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors," the Nobel jury said.

Understanding the receptors provides the tools for "better drugs with fewer side effects," Nobel committee member Sven Lidin said.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are known to influence everything from sight, smell and taste to blood pressure, pain tolerance and metabolism.

They tell the inside of cells about conditions on the outside of their protective plasma membranes, to which the cells can form a response -- communicating with each other and with the surrounding environment.

This explains how cardiac cells know to raise the heart rate when we are startled, for example.

Read the original post:
US pair share chemistry Nobel for cell receptors

Two U.S. scientists have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering a primary way the billions of cells in the body sense their environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today (Oct. 10).

In groundbreaking research, Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka figured out the inner workings of so-called G-proteincoupled receptors (GPCRs). These receptors, or tiny sensors on cells, interact with the fight-or-flight hormone adrenalin (also called epinephrine), dopamine, serotonin, light, flavor and odor.

In fact, in times of stress, a type of GPCR mediates the many effects of adrenaline, including dilation of pupils, constriction of blood vessels and heart-rate increase.

"The work of Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka has helped us to understand more fullyhow our cells react to external influences such as the hormone adrenalin," Martyn Poliakoff, foreign secretary and vice president of the Royal Society, said in a statement.

"Understanding how our bodies prepare for fight or flight is just one of the applications of their work, which has also opened the door for a wide range of new, more effective drug treatments with fewer side effects," Poliakoff added.

These receptors mediate the effects of about half of all medicines, including beta-blockers, antihistamines and several psychiatric medications. GCPRs are also quite complex, and so trying to image one of them seemed an elusive goal.

In 2011, Kobilka his research team did just that, capturing an image of one GCPR called -adrenergic receptor (it binds with the hormone adrenaline) just as it was activated by the hormone and sending a signal into the cell. "This image is a molecular masterpiece the result of decades of research," according to a statement on the Nobel Prize website. [In Photos: Nobel Prize Winners 2012]

When the Royal Society called to let Kobilka know of his award it was the middle of the night for him in California he missed it. Luckily, they called again, but even then Kobilka thought it was a prank. "I thought it was some friends initially. But I don't have friends with a really good Swedish accent so then I started believing it," he said during an interview with the Nobel Prize website.

Kobilka, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and Lefkowitz, of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, will receive their Nobel Prizes on Dec. 10.

The Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine and in physics were announced Monday (Oct. 8) and Tuesday (Oct. 9), respectively; the Nobels in Literature and in Peace will be announced Thursday and Friday, respectively, with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to be announced Monday, Oct. 15.

Excerpt from:
2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awards Groundbreaking Cell Research

Two Americans are sharing this years Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping reveal the way that many hormones and neurotransmitters and hundreds of drugs communicate with the interior of cells.

The winners, Robert J. Lefkowitz, 69, of Duke University and Brian K. Kobilka, 57, of Stanford University, were teacher and student. Both are physicians and neither has a doctorate in chemistry.

Their research, conducted over four decades, has elucidated the workings of G-protein-coupled receptors, a family with about 1,000 varieties that are involved in everything from sight and smell to the regulation of pain and heart rate.

More than one-third of all drugs on the market including beta blockers, antihistamines and opioid painkillers operate through G-protein-coupled receptors. Work in the past few years that reveals receptor structure in atomic detail may eventually lead to drugs with more precise action and fewer side effects.

In making the announcement, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the pair had made groundbreaking discoveries and called Kobilkas success last year in crystallizing a receptor at the moment it is being activated a molecular masterpiece. The two will share about $1.2 million.

With its insights both crucial to understanding cell biology and highly useful to clinical medicine, a Nobel for this field had long been predicted.

This could have been a prize in physiology or medicine, but its the chemical nature of the changes [driven by the receptors] that is being recognized here, said Bassam Shakhashiri, president of the American Chemical Society and a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

At a news conference, Lefkowitz said he and Kobilka couldnt be more different. Lefkowitz is a voluble, Bronx-accented New Yorker; Kobilka is a taciturn, small-town Minnesotan. Lefkowitz said the two had talked by Skype earlier in the day, and Lefkowitz had said Kobilkas recent work is maybe what pushed this over the line into prize-winning territory. Kobilka demurred and said Lefkowitzs work is what made his achievement possible.

What little was said was really very moving, he told the news conference, his voice catching.

Lefkowitzs research has been supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, based in Chevy Chase, since 1976 longer than any other of the institutes fellows, he said.

See the original post:
Two Americans get chemistry Nobel for elucidating cellular receptors

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors, which are the portals by which information about the environment reaches the interior of cells and leads to their responses. About half of all drugs work by interacting with G-protein-coupled receptors

Subscribe via iTunes

Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

Read More

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors, which are the portals by which information about the environment reaches the interior of cells and leads to their responses. About half of all drugs work by interacting with G-protein-coupled receptors.

The official Nobel Prize press release:

10 October 2012

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2012 to

Robert J. Lefkowitz Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

and

Follow this link:
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry