The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Craig Montell, Ph.D., Duggan Professor, department of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Speaker bio(s)

Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) cation channels are notable in contributing to virtually every sensory modality, and in controlling a daunting array of behaviors. Flies encode 13 TRPs, most of which are expressed and function in sensory neurons, and impact behaviors ranging from phototaxis to thermotaxis, the avoidance of noxious chemicals and proprioception. In this presentation, Dr. Montell will describe recent work from his laboratory demonstrating how TRP channels impact on a wide variety of animal behaviors, using flies as a model organism. In many cases, TRP channels function through G-protein coupled signaling cascades that are initiated by rhodopsin. Thus, while rhodopsin was formerly thought to function exclusively in light detection, Dr. Montell's lab has found that different rhodopsins also initiate signaling cascades that participate in thermotaxis, chemotaxis and other behaviors. Many diseases result from defects in TRP channels, including the childhood neurodegenerative disease Mucolipidosis Type lV, which results from mutations in TRPML1. Based on insights from a fly model for this disease, Dr. Montell will describe a concept for a therapy for this disease.

Dr. Montell earned his Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1983, where he focused on adenovirus as a model for mRNA processing and virally-induced oncogenic transformation. Dr. Montell completed postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he initiated his long-term interest in sensory signaling. He joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as an assistant professor in 1988, and was promoted to associate professor in 1994 and full professor in 1998. In January 2013, Dr. Montell became the Duggan Professor of Neuroscience at the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds honorary degrees from Catholic University in Belgium and Baylor College of Medicine.

Open to

Public

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Gloria Phipps

Phone

(212) 327-8967

Sponsor

Gloria Phipps
(212) 327-8967
phippsg@rockefeller.edu