Gouaux Lab: Members
The Gouaux Lab currently has fourteen members. If you are interested in joining the lab, please contact Eric Gouaux at the address listed on the lab home page.
Isabelle Baconguis email
Graduate Student
Isabelle Baconguis graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Biochemistry in 2005. As an undergraduate student, she studied regulation of NMDA receptors by a calcium-dependent cysteine protease called calpain. After college, Isabelle worked for two years as a research technician. In 2007, she started her graduate studies in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU. Isabelle joined Eric Gouaux’s lab in the summer of 2008 studying structure and function of ligand-gated ion channels using x-ray crystallography and electrophysiology.
Lei Chen email
Postdoc
Lei graduated from Tsinghua University, China, with a BA in Biology in 2005. From 2005 to 2010 he continued his PhD studies at Tsinghua University, where he worked on the regulatory mechanism of AMPK, an important heterotrimeric protein kinase. Lei joined the Gouaux lab in October 2010 and is focusing his research on the mechanism of ligand gated ion channels.
Derek Claxton email
Postdoc
Derek received a BS degree in chemistry from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2004. While an undergraduate, he studied the structure of an E2 enzyme involved in the poly-ubiquitination cascade at the university’s Laboratory for Structural Biology. Afterwards, Derek pursued a PhD in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University. Under the guidance of Hassane S. Mchaourab, Derek employed EPR spectroscopy to study the structure and dynamics of LeuT, a bacterial homolog for human neurotransmitter transporters. Derek joined the Gouaux laboratory in 2011 to investigate the structure of ligand-gated ion channels by x-ray crystallography.
Katharina Dürr email
Postdoc
Katharina studied Biochemistry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and received her Diploma in 2003. After investigating the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis resistance in pancreatic cancer for one year at the University Childrens’ Hospital in Ulm, she returned to Frankfurt and started her PhD work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysics. In 2006, she followed her thesis advisor to the Technical University of Berlin, where she completed her thesis in 2009. The focus of her graduate research was on oligomeric P-type ATPases like the Na,K-ATPase and the gastric H,K-ATPase. In 2010, she joined the Gouaux lab to study ionotropic neuroreceptors using a combination of x-ray crystallography and electrophysiology.
April Goehring email
Senior Research Associate
April Goehring earned a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1993, and as an undergraduate participated in projects to characterize the regulation of MAP kinase kinase. In her graduate research, April’s work focused on the identification and characterization of proteins in yeast involved in polarized cell growth. She was granted a PhD in Biochemistry in 2002 from the University of Oregon. Her postdoctoral training was carried out at the Vollum Institute where she studied anchored PKA signal transduction. Since joining the Gouaux lab in 2008, she has spent her time studying the molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter transporters and receptors.
Motoyuki Hattori email
Postdoc
After receiving a BSc from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2005, Motoyuki earned his PhD from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, in 2009. His graduate work examined the Mg2+-dependent gating mechanism of bacterial MgtE channel by x-ray crystallography. He joined the Gouaux lab in 2009. His current research interest is the structure-function relationship of ligand-gated ion channels involved in synaptic transmission.
Ryan Hibbs email
Postdoc
After graduating from Whitman College with a BA in Biochemistry, Ryan pursued his PhD at U.C. San Diego in Palmer Taylor’s laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology. In his doctoral research he used fluorescence-based approaches to study conformational changes in synaptic proteins. In 2007, Ryan joined the Gouaux lab, where he is using x-ray crystallographic and electrophysiological methods to study the structure and function of ligand-gated ion channels.
Chia-Hsueh Lee email
Graduate Student
Chia-Hsueh earned his BS and MS from National Taiwan University. While an undergraduate, he studied the role of Na+/Ca2+ exchanger in intracellular Ca2+ dynamics. He then focused on the effect of permeant ions on Mg2+ block of NMDA receptors. In 2010, Chia-Hsueh joined the Gouaux lab as a PhD student.
Jennifer Michel email
Senior Research Associate
BS, Denison University, 1995
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000
It was in the Chemistry Department of Denison University in Granville, OH, that Jennifer Michel found herself in her first research endeavor of synthesizing buckminsterfullerenes, or buckyballs. Taken with research but not completely convinced that chemistry was her calling, she completed her undergraduate degree in Biology. She spent her graduate training in sunny Chapel Hill where she focused on eukaryotic cell cycle regulation by ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis using mammalian and yeast model systems. Her postdoctoral training was carried out at the Vollum Institute where she studied anchored PKA signal transduction using a mouse model system. A happy and content resident of the Pacific Northwest, she now researches the molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter receptor function in the Gouaux lab.
Aravind Penmatsa email
Postdoc
Aravind received a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Osmania University, India in 2003. He joined the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India for a PhD program in Biophysics and Structural Biology, as a joint student in the labs of Dr. Yogendra Sharma and Dr. Rajan Sankaranarayanan. His thesis work during the years 2004–2009 dealt with the ion-binding properties and structures of βγ-crystallins and neuronal calcium sensors. His work with multiple crystal structures of calcium-bound βγ-crystallins corroborated the presence of a universal motif for calcium-binding in this superfamily of proteins. He joined Eric Gouaux’s lab in early 2010 and will be working towards understanding the structure and pharmacology of biogenic amine transporters.
Natalie Sheldon email
Lab Manager
Natalie was born and raised in Oregon and earned a BS in Biology from Hope College in Holland, MI. While earning her degree she worked on the transporter system xc- in Leah Chase’s lab. After graduation in 2006 she joined the Gouaux lab, and her primary role has been to do support work for the entire lab. Natalie also does the purchasing for the lab and tries her hardest to maintain some organization and cleanliness around the lab.
Hui Wang email
Postdoc
After receiving a BSc in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China in 2003, Hui earned his MSc in 2005 and PhD in 2009 from the University of British Columbia, Canada. During his graduate studies, Hui worked on the structures, interactions, and functions of of actin and actin-binding proteins. He solved four structures of actin-binding proteins and protein complexes by x-ray crystallography, which provide valuable insights into the mechanisms of actin disassembly and the specific roles played by actin-binding proteins. Hui joined the Gouaux lab as a postdoctoral fellow in fall of 2009.
Kevin Wang email
Postdoc
Kevin graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a BA in Molecular Biology and then pursued his PhD with Tania Baker and Bob Sauer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His graduate studies focused on the mechanisms of substrate recognition by the ClpAP bacterial protease and the ClpS adaptor. Kevin joined the Gouaux lab in 2010 to work on the structure and function of neurotransmitter transporters.
