The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003 was awarded "for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes" jointly with one half to Peter Agre "for the discovery of water channels" and with one half to Roderick MacKinnon "for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels".
Experts at 10th Annual Ion Channel Retreat 2012, Vancouver; June 25-17, 2012 described that, our group (Dutta and Robinson) at Purdue University also would have shared this Nobel, if the manuscript entitled “Identification and Characterization of Stretch-Activated Ion Channels in Pollen Protoplasts” communicated in February 2003 to Plant Physiology would have published in time. It was for the first time our group discovered the calcium ion channels which are mechano-sensitive in plant system. It resembles with the ion channels found in heart muscles cells. The reviewers asked to incorporate some more experimental data in the said manuscript, which took about 10 months delay in publication. The paper was later published in Plant Physiology is one of the highly cited publication and acclaimed as greatest discovery in Ion Channel Research as mentioned in Research Highlights in ‘Nature’ Vol. 430 pp. 416 (2004). The Nature editorial publishes column “Research Highlights” in the journal, which includes the news about trend setting research accomplishments across the world.
