Kalina Hristova
Johns Hopkins University
Kalina Hristova received her B.S. degree from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and her Ph.D. degree from Duke University, USA. She did post-doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine. She joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University as an Assistant Professor in 2001. Now she is a Professor and the Marlin U. Zimmerman Faculty Scholar in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins. Kalina is a recipient of the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff award from the American Biophysical Society. The main focus of the research in her laboratory is the thermodynamic and structural principles that underlie membrane protein folding and signal transduction across biological membranes. More information about Kalina’s research is available at the BMMB Laboratory website.
Graeme Milligan
University of Glasgow
I am currently Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Gardiner Professor of Biochemistry at University of Glasgow in Scotland, where I have been based since 1986. I also currently act as Dean of Research of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, the largest of the 4 Colleges that comprise the University. The major focus of my research centers on the pharmacology and function of G protein-coupled receptors, an area in which I have published some 450 articles. Please visit my webpage for more information about my research.
Liviu Movileanu
Syracuse University
Liviu Movileanu studied physics (1985-1990) and received a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Bucharest (1997). He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Missouri (Kansas City, Missouri, 1997-1998) and the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (College Station, Texas, 1999-2004). He is currently an Associate Professor of Physics at Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York). His research areas include single-molecule and membrane biophysics, chemical and synthetic biology, bionanotechnology and nanomedicine, biosensors and functional nanobiomaterials. Liviu Movileanu’s group is primarily funded by the US National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Please visit Movileanu Laboratory for additional information.
Marvin Nieman
Case Western Reserve University
Marvin Nieman is an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University. He received his PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Toledo. His current research focus is on how platelets, formed at the site of an injury, respond to agonists such as thrombin, collagen, ADP, and thromboxane to become adhesive and form a thrombus. However, little is known about how receptors on the platelet surface interact with each other to modulate their function. His basic science research seeks to provide the fundamental understanding of how these therapeutic targets function at the molecular level. Dr. Nieman’s website has additional information about his research focus.
Paul Park
Case Western Reserve University
Paul Park is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. He received his Ph.D. degree in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Toronto. Dr. Park utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to understand the mechanism of action of G protein-coupled receptors. His current research focus is on the structure and function of rhodopsin in photoreceptor cells of the retina and in understanding the mechanism by which mutations in rhodopsin lead to retinal degenerative disorders. More information may be found at the Park Lab website.
Valerica Raicu
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Valerică Raicu holds a PhD degree in Biophysics from the University of Bucharest. Between 1991 and 2004, he has held research and academic positions at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Romanian Academy (Bucharest), Kochi Medical School (Japan), and University of Toronto (Canada). Since 2004, he has been at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he currently is Professor and Chair of the Physics Department, an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences, and the Director of the UWM Small Businesses Collaboratory. He is also a co-founder of Aurora Spectral Technologies, LLC. Professor Raicu has authored or co-authored over forty peer-reviewed papers and several book chapters and books on various topics in biophysics, as well as several patents in the area of optical micro-spectroscopy
Arnold Ruoho
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Prof. Ruoho received his B.S. in Pharmacy/Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Toronto in 1964 and his Ph.D. in Physiological Chemistry from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970. He held a postdoctoral position at the University of California, San Diego from 1971-1974. Since 1974, Professor Ruoho has held positions in the Department of Phamacology at University of Wisconsin Medical School and the UW Eye Research Institute. His research area is focused on understanding the biochemistry and biological functions of membrane bound receptors and cellular signaling pathways. He develops unique chemical synthetic methodologies for small molecule drugs and applies chemical biology approaches to interrogate biological systems. Together with collaborators, prior to reports of the crystal structure, he had identified the binding site of the B2AR using an array of specific and unique radioiodinated photoprobes. He determined the first atomic structure of the catalytic core of adenylyl cyclase. His laboratory has also successfully applied a selective chemical biology strategy for photolabel transfer profiling to determine protein-protein interactions that occur in various cellular signaling pathways. In addition he has synthesized many small molecules for probing the binding sites for agonists and antagonists on sigma-1 and sigma-2 receptors. Please visit Dr. Ruoho’s webpage for further information.
Amol V. Shivange
California Institute of Technology
Amol received his undergraduate degree in pharmacy from University of Pune and his M.S. in biotechnology from NIPER, Mohali in India. During his PhD in Protein Engineering with Prof. Ulrich Schwaneberg at Jacobs University Bremen in Germany, he worked on directed evolution of phytase and developed novel methods for protein engineering. His postdoctoral work with Prof. Patrick S. Daugherty at UCSB in California created a method for discovering de novo bioactive cyclic peptides. Currently, he is a postdoctoral scholar working with Prof. Henry A. Lester at Caltech and Dr. Loren L. Looger at HHMI to design and discover novel protein based biosensors and engineer them to detect nicotine. Recently, they discovered a robust nicotine biosensor that will be employed in studying inside-out neuropharmacology. His research interest is in designing novel engineered proteins and peptides for therapeutic and pharmacological applications. More information can be found at my website (https://sites.google.com/site/amolshivange).
James W. Wells
University of Toronto
James W. Wells is a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Toronto. He received his undergraduate degree in pharmacy and his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry, both from the University of Toronto. Following postdoctoral training in the Division of Molecular Pharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, he returned to the University of Toronto to join the staff of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. His interest is in the mechanism of signaling via G protein-coupled receptors, with the M2 muscarinic cholinergic receptor taken as the case in point. His approach is based on the development of explicit mechanistic models, which are used to decode the data and to inform the design of pharmacological, biochemical and biophysical studies of preparations that range from single molecules to live cells. Of particular current interest is the status of the receptor as a monomer or an oligomer, which is studied in part by means of Förster resonance energy transfer. Please visit Dr. Wells’ webpage for more information.