From the age of three, Geoffrey Burnstock’s nine pugilist uncles taught him to box his cousins in the back garden. But he had a different career path in mind: research. In the 1970s, he pioneered the concept of ATP’s double life as both an intracellular energy molecule and an extracellular signaling molecule—a concept scientists rejected for 20 years but have now accepted with great enthusiasm. He named ATP’s action as a neurotransmitter “purinergic signaling,” a theory that a colleague once called the “pure-imagine” hypothesis. Burnstock is now President of the Autonomic Neuroscience Centre at the University College Medical School, London. “I’m a bit on the bold side—I love coming up with provocative hypotheses.” See his latest provocation about how purinergic signaling may explain acupuncture’s effects in "Puncturing the Myth."
Carol Barnes began grad school in psychology, but a phone call from her mother shifted her direction—her grandfather was getting disoriented ...
