John Spudich
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Biophysics
Some algae sense light with channelrhodopsins, proteins that open a pore in the cell membrane when light strikes them and let ions flow through. Neuroscientists put these proteins into neurons so that light can switch the neurons on or off, a method called optogenetics.
- Fields
Biophysics
Biochemistry
Neuroscience
- Topics
channelrhodopsins
microbial rhodopsins
optogenetics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Mine algal and other genomes to discover new channelrhodopsins, especially anion-conducting ACRs and possible potassium- or calcium-conducting channels, including red-shifted RubyACRs activated by tissue-penetrating light.
- Link the electrical steps of channel opening to the light-driven chemical steps, using mutations based on the protein structure, electrical recordings of light responses in cells, and fast optical and vibrational spectroscopy.
- Solve atomic structures of channelrhodopsins such as GtACR1 with X-ray crystallography and cryoEM, including capturing the short-lived open state, to explain how light opens the channel.
- Use the red-shifted RubyACRs to study color tuning, the way changes in the protein shift which wavelengths of light activate a channelrhodopsin.
More about the research
Even so, how light actually opens the channel is one of the least understood functions of the rhodopsin protein family. This project studies the variety of channelrhodopsins found in nature, their structures, and their mechanisms.
Why it matters
Channelrhodopsins are used to map brain circuits and to control heart muscle cells, and clinical trials are testing them to restore vision in blind people. Understanding how they work at the molecular level could help engineers design better optogenetic tools. Such tools could aid research on, and possibly treatment of, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, neuropathic pain and heart rhythm disorders such as tachycardia.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Edward Twomey
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biophysics
Determine how AMPA receptors, glutamate-activated channels that carry fast signals between neurons, open and close on a millisecond timescale, using time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy that captures rapid structural snapshots.
James Solomon Fraser
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Biophysics
Improve computational methods for finding and modeling alternative protein shapes in cryoEM density maps, extending the multiconformer modeling the group built for X-ray crystallography.
Ned Wingreen
Princeton University, NJ·Biophysics
Determine how flow, changes over time and biofilm spatial structure shape the strategies bacteria use to gather and act on quorum-sensing information carried by autoinducer signal molecules.
The school
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: 25 labs on PI Pages, $419M a year on research, 340 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
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