DRGPCR - Key Persons

Alexander S. Hauser

Job Titles:

Antonella Di Pizio
Dr. GPCR Member

Dr. GPCR Ecosystem

Job Titles:

Member - Alexander S. Hauser
Member - Brian Bender
Member - Cameron N. Johnstone
Member - Chahat Soni
Member - Christopher R. Dasaro
Member - Erik Joseph Garcia
Member - Fabian Liessmann
Member - Gernot Langer
Member - Girinath G. Pillai
Member - Jennifer McGarvey
Member - Marcel Bermudez
Member - Margaux Duchamp
Member - Mark Andrew Connor
Member - Mehrak Paydar
Member - Nicole a. Perry - Hauser
Member - Nipuna Weerasinghe
Member - Richard Van Rijn
Member - Sam R. J. Hoare
Member - Shawn James Adderley
Member - Shivani Sachdev
Member - Silvia Sposini
Member - Stuart Maudsley
Member - Sudarshan Rajagopal
Member - Yamina a. Berchiche
Member since August 2020
Member since December 2020
Member since February 2021
Member since January 2021
Member since July 2020
Member since June 2020
Member since March 2020
Member since May 2021
Member since November 2021
Member since October 2021
Member since September 2020

I founded the Dr.GPCR Ecosystem with the goal to accelerate the GPCR drug discovery effort by bringing together key stakeholders such as scientists, biotech & pharma leaders, vendors, and help foster partnerships. "Don't show up to prove, show up to improve". I am a pragmatic biochemist specialized in GPCR signaling and molecular pharmacology. I love finding solutions to challenging problems and help improve processes. I am curious, focused, tenacious, strategic, passionate, and fiercely dedicated. I thrive in fast-paced environments that require taking initiatives, systemization, managing multiple programs at the same time, and communicating with stakeholders within and outside the organization to ultimately solve problems. Detail-oriented and driven, I headed the design, development, and execution of biochemical and cell-based GPCR biophysical assays as well as integrated, adapted SOPs of novel assays learned at the location of collaborators. These led me to gain quality management experience and helped secure over $2M of R&D funds. I developed strong communication skills by authoring 12 peer-reviewed articles, serving as a reviewer for Science Signaling and the American Journal of Physiology, participating in over 30 conferences, organizing 2 local meetings, and proficiently fostering relationships with key stakeholders. Team-oriented, I participated in hiring, supervising, and mentoring over 10 scientists of different levels and helped strengthen team cohesion by organizing team building activities. I obtained my BS, MD, and Ph.D. at The University of Chicago. My doctoral research in the lab of Keith Moffat focused on time-resolved Laue crystallography of bacterial photoreceptors. I came to Duke University Medical Center for my residency in Internal Medicine followed by fellowship training in Cardiology. During that time, I worked in the lab of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, focusing my research on mechanisms underlying biased agonisms at GPCRs. I started as an Assistant Professor at Duke in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. My research focuses on signaling at the intersection of inflammation and vascular diseases such as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH is a disease of the pulmonary arterioles that results in right heart failure and most of its treatments target signaling by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). My lab focuses on the signaling mechanisms of GPCRs, such as chemokine receptors that regulate immune function in PAH, and novel paradigms for their regulation in health and disease. While it has been known for some time that these receptors signal through multiple downstream effectors (such as heterotrimeric G proteins and multifunctional beta-arrestin adapter proteins), over the past decade it has been better appreciated that these receptors are capable of signaling with different efficacies to these effectors, a phenomenon referred to as "biased agonism". Ligands can be biased, by activating different pathways from one another, and receptors can be biased, by signaling to a limited number of pathways that are normally available to them. We use multiple approaches to probe these signaling mechanisms, including in-house pharmacological assays, advanced phosphoproteomics, and single-cell RNA sequencing. I am a scientist who is interested in developing novel G protein-coupled receptor-based therapeutic pipelines for aging-related disorders. We are also in the process of generating our first start-up company so stay tuned for some real breakthroughs! Passionate about understanding the relationship between GPCR trafficking and signaling I have been actively working in GPCR-related discovery since 2010 undertaking both my BSc and MSc projects at "Sapienza" University of Rome (Italy) aiming to uncover the molecular mechanisms of prokineticin receptor 2 dimerization. During my Ph.D. (2018, Imperial College London), I worked under the supervision of Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu on a project focused on the molecular mechanisms regulating the luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR) trafficking and signaling in HEK293 and primary human endometrial stromal cells, using a broad range of techniques including super-resolution imaging. Thrilled to gain more expertise in microscopy and curious to study the regulation of GPCR and ionotropic receptors in neurons, in 2018 I joined Dr. David Perrais's lab within Dr. Daniel Choquet's team at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience (IINS) in Bordeaux (France). In 2019 I was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship with a project aimed at understanding the role of post-synaptic GPCR intracellular trafficking and signaling on synaptic plasticity; this is being carried out on a collaborative basis in 4 different laboratories (Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu, Imperial College London; Dr. David Perrais, IINS; Dr. Daniel Choquet, IINS; Prof Mark von Zastrow, UCSF). I love the mystery of not knowing the answers to my research questions. I discovered my love for GPCR while I was doing a Master of Research in pharmacology at Macquarie University in Australia. I love the mechanistic details that often exists in GPCR, their landscape just keeps stretching out as we move on. This led me to pursue a Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Mark Connor (2017-2020), where I studied the pharmacology of cannabinoid receptors - the most abundant GPCR in the brain. I have published several papers during my Ph.D. candidature (three as the first author), including major work on the efficacy of cannabinoids in the British Journal of Pharmacology, attesting to the quality of research work carried out. Given the attention, cannabis-based medicines are currently receiving in Australia and elsewhere, I have contributed significantly to promoting the topic of pharmacology by speaking about cannabinoids in the Pint of Science Festival and the Sydney Science Festival. I was also invited to give a seminar on my research to one of the leading labs in the cannabinoid field at Indiana University, USA, and has obtained five highly competitive grants to present my work at international and national conferences. My work in the Dr. Denovan-Wright lab at Dalhousie University aims to understand the complex pharmacology of the endocannabinoid system - with a specific interest in potential changes in signaling and receptor behavior that occur when the CB1 and CB2 receptors physically associate to form heterodimers. I am a seasoned GPCR drug discovery scientist, with 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and a track record in developing new ways to analyze and understand GPCR pharmacology. I am known particularly for applying kinetics to the discovery and development of improved GPCR therapeutics, and for developing new analytical frameworks to quantify signaling kinetics. In 2015, I founded Pharmechanics LLC, a consultancy that provides pharmacology data analysis tools and support and strategic consulting for pharmaceutical, life science, and scientific research organizations. I am known for demystifying complicated and newly-emerging pharmacology concepts, enabling them to be applied by investigators and project teams to drug discovery and receptor research. I completed postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health, researching pharmacological mechanisms of Class B GPCRs, and obtained my Ph.D. in biochemistry, studying allosteric modulation of dopamine receptors, from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. I am a tenured Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University. I have extensive training in drug discovery especially in relation to G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) pharmacology, having received a BS/MS degree in biopharmaceutical sciences from Leiden University, with an emphasis in pharmacognosy, and a Ph.D. degree from VU University Amsterdam in Molecular Pharmacology of histamine receptors. My independent research has primarily focused on investigating the delta-opioid receptor (δOR) as a novel target for the treatment of (co-morbid) pain, drug, and mood disorders. Particularly, my post-doctoral training in behavioral pharmacology of alcohol and opioid use at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, a premier alcohol research center within the University of California San Francisco, has been valuable in establishing me as an expert in the study of alcohol use disorder and opioid receptor pharmacology. My work is highly collaborative and I have published and received NIH funding working together with chemists, computational biophysicists, pharmacologists, and biochemists. I recently finished a sabbatical in the laboratory of Dr. Brian Shoichet at UCSF to acquire novel skills in docking ultra-large virtual libraries at opioid receptors. Currently, the primary research area, my lab is focused on is the study and development of signal-biased opioids as tools and possible therapy for neurological and psychiatric disorders I am originally from Sri Lanka, where I got my bachelors' degree in chemistry with computer science as a minor subject at the University of Colombo. Then I came to the US for pursue graduate studies in 2013. My interest in this area has sprung from a number of sources. As a student at the University of Arizona (August 2013 to August 2016), I worked under Prof. Craig Aspinwall to develop a new nano-scale biosensor platform utilizing a chimeric protein called ion channel-coupled receptors (ICCRs), where a GPCR is fused to the kir6.2 ion channel (IC). I investigated both cell-based and cell-free expression strategies to produce functioning protein chimeras. I have then utilized immunocytochemistry, confocal microscopy, and patch-clamp to characterize the protein. Since October 2016, I have been engaging in basic research in Prof. Michael F. Brown's lab, working on multiple projects involving the visual receptor rhodopsin as a model to probe the structure-function relationship of the GPCRs. In one project, we studied how the membrane soft matter (cellular water and membrane lipid) effect the photoactivation process of the rhodopsin. Here we used polyethylene glycol (PEG) of various size and at different concentration to generate high osmotic pressure and probe how dehydration effect the confirmation dynamics of the activation and transducin binding. In another project we are investigating the allosteric effect of lipid and Zn2+ binding on each other and how this effect the rhodopsin activation using native mass spectroscopy. My immediate plan is to pursue a PhD and gain more exposure on how to use biophysical tools such as crystallography, scattering techniques and Cryo-EM to elucidate structural information of GPCRs. I have chosen to complete my postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Javitch at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The focus of the Javitch laboratory is on understanding the mechanism of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling using techniques ranging from basic pharmacology to animal models. Therefore, my previous work with the arrestin proteins, which are key regulators of GPCRs, has prepared me for research in this area. My long-term goal is to continue in academia (remaining in the signaling field and using structural approaches). My research interests are G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and their signaling mechanisms in pancreatic cancer with an emphasis on receptor expression and regulation, post-receptor signal transduction events/components, and downstream responses in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells Pharmacologist from Sydney; Ph.D. from the University of Washington, worked in Bristol, Portland Oregon, before Macquarie Uni. Generally interested in GPCR modulation of ion channels as an insight into how they modulate neuronal function, more recently focussed on drug actions at GPCR using ion channels and other assays to probe efficacy and selectivity. Like new drugs, new ways of modulating signaling, opioids, and cannabinoids are favorites but can be distracted by anything shiny and interesting related to GPCR Bio-engineer by training, I switched to microfluidics for biological applications with high translational potential during my Ph.D. I entered the GPCR field thanks to my colleague and she converted me! We are now actively working to develop a novel GPCR screening tool adapted for primary cells and directly identifying a drug's mode of action in a single assay. I am a trained pharmacist and did my Ph.D. in computer-aided drug design at the Freie Universität Berlin focusing on muscarinic receptors as model systems. After research stays in the Niv lab (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and in the Bender lab (University of Cambridge), I joined the Molecular Design Lab of Gerhard Wolber. Since October 2021 I started my own lab as an assistant professor at the University of Münster. My research focuses on in silico pharmacology, following the interdisciplinary approach to connect computational methods and molecular pharmacology. I am particularly interested in mechanistic investigations of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) as an important class of drug targets. This includes the investigation of multidimensional receptor functions like selectivity profiles, partial agonism, allosteric modulation, dimerization, and functional selectivity. I believe that a deeper understanding of specific receptor mechanisms can allow drug design to be more rational and goal-oriented. I am a cell and molecular biologist with extensive experience in molecular neuroscience and GPCR biology. I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, studying the regulation of post-synaptic AMPA-type glutamate receptors. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, I joined the Protein Engineering group of Sosei Heptares in 2016. Here my work focuses on the thermostabilization of GPCRs for structural studies. Dr. Pillai is one of the Coordinators for MHRD's Drug Discovery Hackathon 2020; Founder of Zastra Innovations, Bengaluru, Research Scientist at Nyro Research India, and formerly a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Molcode Ltd., Estonia. He carried out his Ph.D. at the University of Florida with Prof. Katritzky and Prof. Karelson, University of Tartu. His expertise is in the area of machine learning, molecular modeling software/pipeline development, KNIME workflows, mechanistic driven drug discovery. He extensively worked on GPCR targets including QSAR modeling of GPCR molecules. Currently, his main focus is on GPCR undruggable targets as well as on disease targets related to aging. I am Fabian, and as of now, a grad student of the MeilerLab in Leipzig, Germany. Years ago, I started my scientific journey as a pharmacist in Leipzig, learned a lot about all kinds of pharmaceutical drugs (from synthesis, usage, application, (side) effect and how to sell them in a German drug store). My diploma/master thesis at RIKEN Yokohama changed my interest in the computational side. Now I am stuck in no-wet lab work with just working with silicon-based computers and virtual receptors and compounds. My main interests are the GPCRs and the ligand-binding sides of them. Here I focused on the intriguing adhesion GPCRs and everything you can do with drug discovery in this field. For class A GPCRs, I am building a method to improve the pocket area for better (and more realistic) ligand binding and docking (RosettaPocketsize). I modeled and am modeling GPR114 (ADGRG5), GPR126 (ADRG6) and GPR133 (ADGRD1). For this, I started a drug discovery workflow in Leipzig, starting with the virtual screening of ultra-large libraries and chemical optimization. My goal is to provide new insights into this fascinating subgroup of GPCRs and explore the chemical diversity of possible ligands. "Dr. Erik Garcia is a behavioral neuroscientist and neuropharmacologist. His research is at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and neuropharmacology. Most broadly, he aims to understand individual-level predictors that govern the transition to compulsive drug use and identify the traits that contribute to the development of substance use disorders. He employs preclinical models and the principles of operant and Pavlovian conditioning to model human substance use to reveal the neurobiological mechanisms that drive the development of substance use. His latest research focuses on opioid use disorder and novel medication development within a behavioral economic framework to rapidly characterize therapeutic candidates. Dr. Garcia aims to bridge the gap between preclinical discoveries and meaningful clinical outcomes in the effort to aid people in their path toward substance use recovery. Most importantly, I am a firm believer and advocate for diversity, inclusion, and mentoring scientists. Please contact me about opportunities to work and contribute to the lab." I first became infatuated with drug pharmacology through my professor, principal investigator, and mentor, Dr. Jeremy Teissere, while pursuing my B.S in Neuroscience at Muhlenberg College. Though, asking when I first became interested in receptor biology is largely existential; I think that we all have a fascination with domino-like cascades--the idea that just one stimulus (e.g, a conformational change, a drug binding, etc.) can propagate signals at a scale impossibly larger than its point of origin. My undergraduate research focused on analyzing Phyto-compound constituents that modulate the gamma-Aminobutyric acid type A receptor (GABA[A]R)--the main inhibitory receptor of the CNS. To do so, I largely used analytical techniques like HPLC-DAD to discern the composition of these compounds and assisted in electrophysiologically assessing their binding potential. Later, I independently modeled these interactions. To do so, I self-taught a variety of open-source software and programs such as UCSF Chimera, T-Coffee, and SWISS-MODEL. My ultimate aim was to conduct molecular dynamics simulations, model relevant point mutations, and ultimately give a more macroscopic perspective (on the computer) of the electrophysiology we observed and were learning about in lectures. After working on this project for 1.5 years, I helped draft zDOPE-score validated α1β2γ, α1β2, and extrasynaptic δ pentamers. Currently, I am a Post-Baccalaureate Research Fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS) where I have been learning various radioligand-binding and bioluminescent techniques to analyze the signaling action of the Dopamine D2 receptor (DA D2R). The DA D2R is a G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR) that is among the most validated drug targets for neuropsychiatric disorders. I aim to use my experiences at NINDS and the NIH to pursue biomedical research aimed at advancing psychiatric therapies, namely (though certainly not limited to) Substance Use Disorders (SUDs). I am a molecular oncologist with 20 years of post-doctoral experience in the biology and therapy of solid cancers, with an emphasis on breast cancer. I've been involved in cancer gene discovery and functional analysis of cancer-related genes through the deployment of standard and development of novel in vitro and in vivo (xenograft, allograft, and transgenic) model systems. I've worked in academia and more recently with the private sector. I did my Ph.D. in a Rosetta lab learning how to incorporate spare experimental data into accurate models of GPCRs in complex with neuropeptides. I am now exploring the use of these models for in silico drug screening for orphan receptors. Utilize Rosetta for structure prediction of any GPCR using any and all available experimental data: mutagenesis, evolutionary analysis, cross-linking mass spec, NMR, etc. Currently, use DOCK3.7 for ultra-large library screening of GPCR drug targets. The explosion of biomedical data such as in genomics, structural biology, and pharmacology can provide new opportunities to improve our understanding of human physiology and disease. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate a vast variety of critical biological processes and provide an ideal case study on the focused integration of these amounts of data with innovative computational tools to gain novel insights into receptor biology.