Table of Contents
Rapid Communication:
Vasanthi Jayaraman,
Ph.D., assistant professor of integrative biology
and pharmacology,
Medical School and GSBS
When you click the remote control, your television converts the signal into an electrical signal to turn on the set. But if the battery is weak, the distance is too great or the programming is incompatible, the television does not respond.
Ph.D.
In the body, rapid communication between nerve cells is mediated by a group of proteins called neurotransmitter receptors that convert chemical signals liberated at the end of one nerve cell into an electrical signal at the second nerve cell. Research to better understand this process will help scientists design better drugs for diseases, such as stroke or Parkinson’s, in which this process is disrupted.
“While day-to-day activities, such as learning and memory, depend on this type of communication, excess neurotransmitters, such as glutamate, can result in nerve death, as observed in stroke and ALS,” said Jayaraman. “My research is focused on understanding the mechanism of communication by studying the changes in the protein at an atomic level as it carries out its biological function.” The research requires an interdisciplinary approach using tools from physics, chemistry and biology.
“My doctoral work involved the use of various physical chemistry methods, while my postdoctoral training was geared towards studying neurotransmitter receptors using conventional electrophysiological methods,” she said. “This type of interdisciplinary training put me in a unique position to be able to use chemistry tools to study a group of proteins that had been primarily investigated by molecular biological and physiological methods, thus allowing us to obtain new insights into the mechanism by which they carry our their biological function.”