Londos recalls the informal atmosphere of the early days fondly. He always wrote a poem for special occasions, a practice he continues to this day. But theories on how information goes through the cell walls and gets to the AMP was limited and unproven. Rodbell's breakthroughs came in 1970 and 1971. But he couldn't get the result that would confirm this theory.
Cell walls have receptors that detect a specific hormone from the outside.
Instead of a simple cause and effect, there was an intermediate step in the messenger process. Rodbell presented his idea to an NIH conference the next day. I felt, if this were the case, then you would get a more complex set of communication components. It would make the cells able to do many more types of things. But Rodbell's colleagues were unimpressed.