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Eric Gouaux completed his A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry at Harvard University in 1989. He remained at Harvard for a year as a postdoctoral fellow, and then continued his postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Chicago Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
In 1996, he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Columbia University as an assistant professor. In 2000, he was appointed Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and associate professor with Columbia, reaching full professor the following year. He came to Oregon Health & Science University in 2005 as a Senior Scientist at the Vollum Institute and continuing his position with Howard Hughes. He joined the graduate faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2006.
Research Interests
The work in the Gouaux Lab is concentrated on developing atomic scale mechanisms for the function of receptors and transporters at chemical synapses. At chemical synapses, neurotransmitters released from one neuron diffuse throughout a small space—the synaptic cleft—to receptors on adjacent neurons. At many synapses, the neurotransmitter binds to a receptor that is a ligand-gated ion channel, and this binding event leads to the opening of a transmembrane pore, which in turn results in depolarization of the nerve cell and generation of an electrical signal. Neurotransmitter transporters surrounding the synapse clear the transmitters from the cleft by coupling the thermodynamically unfavorable uptake to the favorable co-transport of one or more sodium ions.
Glutamate, glycine and the biogenic amines are neurotransmitters of particular significance and currently we are focusing our efforts on eukaryotic glutamate receptors and on bacterial homologs of the transporters for glutamate, glycine and the biogenic amines. While our primary tool is x-ray crystallography, we also utilize electrophysiology as well as other biophysical and biochemical methods.
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Selected Publications
Jasti, J., Furukawa, H., Gonzales, E.B., Gouaux, E. (2007) Structure of acid-sensing ion channel 1 at 1.9 Å resolution. Nature 449:316-23.
Singh, S.K., Yamashita, A., Gouaux, E. (2007) Antidepressant binding site in a bacterial homologue of neurotransmitter transporters. Nature 448:952-6.
Boudker, O., Ryan, R.M., Yernool, D., Shimamoto, K., Gouaux, E. (2007) Coupling substrate and ion binding to extracellular gate of a sodium-dependent aspartate transporter. Nature 445:387-93.
Armstrong, N., Jasti, J., Beich-Frandsen, M., and Gouaux, E. (2006) Measurement of conformational changes accompanying desensitization in an ionotropic glutamate receptor. Cell 127:85-97.
Furukawa, H., Singh, S., Mancusso, R., and Gouaux, E. (2005) Subunit arrangement and function in NMDA receptors. Nature 438:185-92.
Yamashita, A., Singh, S., Kawate, T., Jin, Y., and Gouaux, E. (2005) Crystal structure of a bacterial homologue of Na+/Cl- dependent neurotransmitter transporters. Nature 437:215-23.
Gouaux, E. and Mackinnon, R. (2005) Principles of selective ion transport in channels and pumps. Science 310:1461-5.
Yernool, D., Boudker, O. Jin, Y. and Gouaux, E. (2004) Structure of a glutamate transporter homologue from Pyrococcus horikoshii. Nature 431:811-818.
Sun, Y., Olson, R., Horning, M., Armstrong, N., Mayer, M.L. and Gouaux, E. (2002) Mechanism of glutamate receptor desensitization. Nature 417:245-253.
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