These ubiquitous elements connect cells and serve as conduits for the flow of chemical and electrical signals, thereby enabling groups of cells to coordinate their activities. Perhaps not surprisingly, Goodenough's passion for science and teaching was inspired by his own graduate school mentor, HMS researcher Jean Paul Ravel. His discovery helped earn him a PhD, but when he tried to replicate his findings during a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF, he had problems. At the time, gap junctions were thought to be homogeneous structures, composed essentially of a single protein and present only in certain organs, such as the heart. In fact, Goodenough and other researchers have discovered that gap junctions are found in all organs and that there are at least 13 genes coding for gap junction proteins.
Gap junctions take on a variety of structures.
Goodenough helped identify the two illustrated here. That changed three years later with the show-stopping birth of their second child, since Carol had to stay in the hospital for two and a half months. Goodenough decided to start a support group in which medical students could talk about their feelings. Students drive the questions. They're the ones to decide what gets written on the board, what they're going to talk about, study, discuss.