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Gilman shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Martin Rodbell for discovering G-proteins, the molecular switches that relay signals from a cell's surface receptors to its interior — a mechanism now understood to underlie processes from vision to hormone response to the action of many drugs. He later chaired pharmacology at UT Southwestern and helped found Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, carrying his research from the laboratory bench into drug development that has since treated millions of patients.