I'm a graduate student in the Committee on Neurobiology here at the University of Chicago. My advisor is Eric Schwartz.
Research
Neurotransmitters can be released a number of ways. In most neurons, before being released, transmitter molecules are pre-packaged into vesicles—small, spherical, intracellular containers. When triggered, those vesicles fuse with the cell surface membrane, emptying their contents into the synaptic cleft. But in some cases neurotransmitters are actively expelled from neurons without first entering a vesicle. Instead, specialized proteins called transporters can pump transmitters directly into the synaptic cleft (Schwartz, 2002; Wu et al, 2007.).
In the Schwartz Lab, we study vesicle- and transporter-mediated synaptic transmission using a combination of electrical, optical, genetic, and mathematical techniques. Currently, we are developing a kinetic model of vesicle fusion based on video recordings of fluorescently-labeled vesicles made with a total internal reflection microscope.
Besides synaptic transmission, I'm also interested in neural coding and in the mechanisms and pathologies of decision-making, such as addiction.
