Martin Rodbell, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1994, passed away 7 December 1998 after a long illness. Rodbell had a long and distinguished career in research and senior leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health. At different times in his career, he conducted research at the National Heart Institute, the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases (NIAMD), and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). He served as Scientific Director of the NIEHS from 1985 to 1989. In 1994 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alfred Gilman, Professor and Chairman in the Department of Pharmacology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, for their work on G-proteins, a key component of the communication system that regulates cellular activity. Rodbell was the fifth NIH intramural scientist to be awarded a Nobel Prize.