Details

Title of the project: Structural basis of allosteric GABA_A receptor modulation

Finishing date: 10/2019

Research topic of the student: My research topic focuses on contributing to the understanding from both a pharmacological and a structural point of view of a ligand-gated ion channel mainly expressed in the brain, the GABA_Areceptor. My project is concentrated at pharmacological characterization of compounds with a certain subtype selectivity profile using recombinant expression of receptors in a heterologous system and two-electrode voltage clamp electrophysiology. Moreover, defining structural determinants of binding of characterized compounds, as well as binding site hypotheses is also a vital part of my research plan. Besides that, my work also tries to elucidate certain poorly understood structural elements of the receptor, namely the intracellular domain, by means of homology modelling, secondary structure predictions, as well as generation of genetic constructs that would also help outline its role and impact on transient receptor properties and allosteric ligand effects.

Publications:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Research stays abroad: 09.03.2018 – 05.09.2018, Host: Stuart A. Forman, Dept. of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston/MA, USA, Topic: GABA_AReceptor. 

2 week stay in 06/2016, Host: Petrine Wellendorph, Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Young Investigator Training Programme, FENS 2016 Copenhagen.

Lab Rotation (4 weeks): Host: Harald Janovjak, Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Subject: Golden gate cloning of chimeric y2 subunits of the GABA_A receptor, 2016

Place after Graduation: PostDoc at the Department of Molecular Neurosciences (Center for Brain Research), Medical University of Vienna; Since 10/2022: Postdoctoral Researcher at Dept. of Drug Design and Pharmacology (ILF), University of Copenhagen