‘How serotonin activates a model neural circuit in C. elegans’

Dr. Michael Koelle
Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University School of Medicine
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - 10:00am
CCBR, Black Room
Special Seminar
Abstract: 
Michael Koelle did his PhD at Stanford University in the laboratory of David S. Hogness where he identified the receptor for the steroid hormone ecdysone that regulates metamorphosis during Drosophila development. As a postdoc at MIT in the lab of H. Robert Horvitz, he discovered Regulators of G Protein Signaling (RGS proteins), which terminate signaling by heterotrimeric G proteins. In his own lab at Yale University, Dr. Koelle studies how neurotransmitters and neuropeptides signal through G protein coupled receptors. His work uses C. elegans as a model system and combines genetics, optogenetics, calcium imaging, and biochemical experiments to understand how the cells within neural circuits signal each other to control circuit activity and ultimately produce behaviors.
Host: 
Dr. Mei Zhen
Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Seminar Series