Roderick MacKinnon (born 19 February 1956) is a professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter Agre in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels.

There he received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1978 while studying calcium transport over cell membranes for his honors thesis at Christopher Miller's laboratory.
He got his M.D. in 1982 and received training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He did not feel satisfied enough with the medical profession, so in 1986 he returned to Christopher Miller at Brandeis for postdoctoral studies.
In 1989 he was appointed assistant professor at Harvard University where he studied the interaction of the potassium channel with a specific toxin derived from scorpion venom, acquainting himself with methods of protein purification and X-ray crystallography.

Awards and distinctions:

1997 - Newcomb Cleveland Prize
1998 - W. Alden Spencer Award
1999 - Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
2000 - Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
2000 - Rosenstiel Award
2001 - Gairdner Foundation International Award
2003 - Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University
2003 - Nobel Prize in Chemistry