STOCKHOLM – U.S. researchers Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka on Wednesday shared the Nobel Chemistry Prize for their pioneering studies on cell receptors, which enable each cell to sense its environment, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Their research on “G-protein-coupled receptors” could also contribute to developing better drugs, according to the Nobel Committee.

Receptors serve as sensors for cells, communicating from outside the cell to the inside, similar to the body’s sensors for light, smell or taste, the committee said.

G-protein-coupled receptors comprise “a whole family of receptors,” it said.

It said that “about half of all medications achieve their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors.”

Antihistamines, beta blockers and different drugs for psychiatric conditions use receptors.

“The receptors are a bit like the switchboard in a building,” explained Sara Snogerup Linse, a committee member. “How it works is very important information for the development of drugs.”

Lefkowitz is with Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. He used radioactivity in 1968 to trace cells’ receptors, discovering several and gaining an initial understanding of them.

Kobilka, affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine in California, worked as a research assistant with Lefkowitz in the 1980s and was instrumental in tracing a key gene that codes the receptor for adrenalin.