Wayne L. Hubbell

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Wayne L. Hubbell (born 24 March 1943) is an American biochemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is Professor of Biochemistry and Jules Stein Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the visual system, and is primarily supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute.Dr. Hubbell has studied the relationship between the molecular structure of a protein and the conformational changes that control its function. Of particular interest are membrane proteins that behave as "molecular switches", i.e., proteins whose structures are switched to an active state by a physical or chemical signal. An example is light-activated rhodopsin, the visual pigment in photoreceptor cells of the retina. The goal is to elucidate the structure of rhodopsin, the mechanism of the molecular switch, and regulation of this switch by associated proteins, transducin and arrestin.