Was there one particular obstacle you had to overcome to get rhodopsin crystallized and elucidate the structure?
Yes, it was the purification. The technique for doing that was invented by Tetsuji Okada. It was critical to obtain high-purity material. After our work was published, three groups came out with different protocols for purification that were also successful, so it wasn’t absolutely necessary to follow ours. So why did we get there first? I think it was the combination of a very careful production, isolation, and purification of the protein and a very careful analysis of the crystals that led to that success. What is it that makes rhodopsin itself such an important receptor, so much so that your paper has been averaging a few hundred citations a year for almost a decade? Rhodopsin is part of this family of receptors called G protein coupled receptors—or “GPCRs,” as I’ve mentioned. There are about 800 members of the same family and they’re very critical for virtually all physiological functions. They’re involved in sensory transduction, for example, in smell and taste as well as vision,
