Distinguished Lecture Series in Physiology
Each year the Department of Physiology invites distinguished researchers to present their work on topics broadly related to physiology. Topics range from those closely aligned with the research interests of the department to areas of interest to researchers across the UC Davis campus and the UC Davis School of Medicine.
Past Seminars
2023
January 12, 2023
Speaker: Mariajose Metcalfe, Ph.D., Project Scientist, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of California, Irvine
Title: "Consequences of AAV-retro mediated deletion of PTEN following cervical spinal cord injury in mice." (PDF)
January 19, 2023
Speaker: David MacLean, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester Medical Center
Title: "Activation and desensitization mechanisms of acid-sensing ion channels" (PDF)
February 2, 2023
Speaker: Justin Taraska, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, Biochemistry and Biophysics Center, NHLBI, NIH
Title: "Imaging the structure of the plasma membrane with correlative light and electron microscopy" (PDF)
February 16, 2023
Speaker: Baron Chanda, Ph.D., Professor, Anesthesiology, Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University in Saint Louis
Title: "Probing Allostery in ion channels at single molecule resolution" (PDF)
April 6, 2023
Speaker: Amy Lee, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas - Austin
Title: "Caldendrin: a multi-functional regulator of ion channels in sensory neurons" (PDF)
April 27, 2023
Speaker: Yun Lyna Luo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biotechnology, Western University of Health Sciences
Title: "Multiscale molecular dynamics simulation studies of mechanosensitive Piezo1 channel" (PDF)
May 4, 2023
Speaker: Leigh Anne Swayne, Ph.D. , Professor, Division of Medical Sciences, University of Victoria, Medical Sciences
December 13, 2023
Speaker: Katherine Wilkinson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, San Jose State University
Title: "Mechanotransduction in Muscle Proprioceptors" (PDF)
2022
January 10, 2022
Speaker: Joyce Da Silva, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Neural and Pain Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Title: "Using functional MRI to study brain mechanisms underlying sex and age differences in a chronic pain model in rats" (PDF)
February 7, 2022
Speaker: Valeria Vásquez, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Title: "Dietary fatty acids fine-tune neuronal and non-neuronal cells mechanical response" (PDF)
March 28, 2022
Speaker: Jonathan Lederer, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Professor of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Title: “Electro-metabolic signaling regulates small vessel blood flow in heart” (PDF)
April 4, 2022
Speaker: Samuel Young, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Iowa
April 11, 2022
Speaker: Bryan Copits, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Pain Center, Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine
Title: "Photoswitchable control of GPCR signaling" (PDF)
May 2, 2022
Speaker: Antentor Hinton, Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences
Title: "3D Reconstructions of Mouse Skeletal Muscle and Heart Muscle Reveal a Decrease in the MICOS Complex and Altered Mitochondrial Networks" (PDF)
May 16, 2022
Speaker: Douglas Bayliss, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Pharmacology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Title: "Properties, regulation, and functions of Pannexin 1 channels" (PDF)
June 27, 2022
Speaker: Romulo Hurtado, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Research, Department of Surgery, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Title: "Doxorubicin induced cardiotoxicity of cardiac pacemakers" (PDF)
November 9, 2022
Speaker: Ana Isabel Fernandez-Marino, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow, National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke
Title: "Electromechanical coupling and slow inactivation in Kv channels" (PDF)
December 1, 2022
Speaker: Michael Hoppa, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Dartmouth College of Research
Title: "Optical approaches to decode synaptic transmission" (PDF)
2019
January 17, 2019
Speaker: Edward Lakatta, Ph.D., Chief of the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science at the National Institute on Aging
Title: "When and why your next heart beat will occur”
September 19, 2019
Speaker: Kevin Foskett, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Department of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Title: “Regulation of the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter ion channel”
October 10, 2019
Speaker: Isabelle Deschênes, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, Ohio State University
Title: “The Cardiac Sodium Channel: Lessons Learned from Bedside to Bench”
October 17, 2019
Speaker: Scott Earley, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine
Title: “An Unexpected Alliance: Vascular Function is Controlled by Nanoscale Association of TRPML1 Channels and Ryanodine Receptors”
November 7, 2019
Carlson Lecture in Physiology
Speaker: Eric Gouaux, Ph.D., Oregon Health Sciences University, Vollum Institute
Title: "Mechanisms of signal transduction at chemical synapses"
2018
April 16, 2018
Speaker: William Kobertz, Ph.D. Professor, University of Massachusetts, Medical School
Title: "Seeing What’s Out There: Fluorescent Visualization of Cellular Efflux”
July 19, 2018
Speaker: Yoram Rudy, Ph.D., F.AH.A., F.H.R.S., Washington University, The Fred Saigh Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Medicine, Cell Biology and Physiology, Radiology, and Pediatrics, Director of the Cardiac Bioelectricity and Arrhythmia Center (CBAC)
Title: "Multi-scale Integration of Cardiac Excitation and Arrhythmia: From Ion-Channel Molecular Structure to the Human Heart"
2017
January 18, 2017
Speaker: Roel Nusse, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor with the Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University, School of Medicine
Title: "A new perspective on stem cells in the liver”
March 15, 2017
Speaker: Christopher Ahern, Ph.D., Associate Professor with University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine
Title: "Taking a chemical biology approach to voltage-dependent ion channel gating: encoding discovery with atomic mutagenesis”
April 19, 2017
Speaker: Thomas Kornberg, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco, Cardiovascular Research Institute
Title: "Signaling at a distance: communicating by touch”
May 24, 2017
Speaker: Geoffrey Pitt, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor with Cornell University, Weill Cornell Medical College
Title: "From Atom to Adam: Channelopathies and Cardiac Pathophysiology"
November 17, 2017
Speaker: Jianyuan Sun, Ph.D., Professor, Institute of Biophysics, Director of Neuroscience Program, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Title: “Revisiting Katz's Quantal Release Theory by Observation of Synaptic Transmission at Single Synapse”
2016
April 11, 2016
Speaker: Stephen Waxman, M.D., Ph.D., Bridget M. Flaherty, Professor of Neurology, Director, Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research,Yale School of Medicine
Title: "Chasing Men on Fire: Na Channels and Pain"
Host: Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy, Ph.D.
April 14, 2016
Speaker: Linda Wordeman, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington School of Medicine
Title: "Centrosome Separation during the Cell Cycle: Knowing when to hold ‘em”
April 21, 2016
Speaker: Darleen Sandoval, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Surgery, University of Michigan
Title: "Using genetics and pharmacology to understand GLP-1 physiology"
Host: Karen Ryan, Ph.D.
April 28, 2016
Speaker: Leslie Leinwand, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado
Title: "Myosin Myopathies: Pathogenesis and Potential Therapeutics"
Host: Keith Baar, Ph.D.
May 5, 2016
Speaker: Adam Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Physics, Harvard University
Title: "All-optical electrophysiology”
Host: Jon Sack, Ph.D.
May 19, 2016
Speaker: Murali Prakriya, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Northwestern University
Title: "Mechanisms and functions of store-operated calcium channels”
Host: Jon Sack, Ph.D.
May 26, 2016
Speaker: Gregory Bix, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Kentucky
Title: “Enter the Matrix: Novel Stroke and Vascular Dementia Therapeutic Targets”
Host: Martha E. O'Donnell, Ph.D.
December 6, 2016
Speaker: Thomas Longden, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Vermont College of Medicine
Title: "Translating thought into blood flow: Capillary-to-arteriole communication in the brain”
2015
March 19, 2015
Speaker: Jay T. Groves, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
Title: “T cell receptor signaling at the single molecule level”
October 19, 2015
Speaker: Vasanthi Jayaraman, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , University of Texas Medical School
Title: “Moving and grooving of glutamate receptors”
November 2, 2015
Speaker: David Hackos, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at Genentech, San Francisco
Title: “Structural basis of Nav1.7 inhibition by an isoform-selective small molecule antagonist”
December 1, 2015
Speaker: Anastasios Tzingounis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut
Title: “Genetic dissection of KCNQ2 and KCNQ3 function in the cortex”
December 7, 2015
Speaker:: Anil Bhushan, Ph.D., Professor, School of Medicine, Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco
Title: “Metabolic plasticity of beta cells in Diabetes”
2014
January 14, 2014
Speaker: Yifan Cheng, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco
Title: "Single Particle cryo-EM structures of TRPV1 ion channels"
February 13, 2014
Speaker: Boris Zhorov, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University
Title: "Computational Structural Pharmacology and Toxicology of Sodium Channels"
February 14, 2014
Speaker: Qiu-Xing Jiang, Ph.D., Department of Cell Biology, The University of Texas Southwestern
Title: "Lipid-dependent gating of a voltage-gated potassium channel"
February 26, 2014
Speaker: Daniel Minor, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco
Title: "Structural and Chemical Biological studies of ion channels"
March 05, 2014
Speaker: Colleen Clancy, Ph.D., University of California, Davis
Title: "Sex, Drugs and Funky Rhythms"
April 16, 2014
Speaker: Diane Papazian, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Title: "Altered K+ Channel Gating in Early-Onset Diseases"
April 23, 2014
Speaker: Bruce Bean, Ph.D., Harvard University
Title: "Ion Channel Regulation of Neuronal Firing Patterns"
(Marion G. and Loren D. Carlson Lecture)
May 7, 2014
Speaker: Alan Miller, Ph.D., Touro University
Title: "Risk Factors for Acquired Long QT syndrome: Electrolyte imbalances and drug block of the cardiac potassium channel HERG."
May 14, 2014
Speaker: Kenton Swartz, Ph.D., Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Section, NINDS, Porter Neuroscience Research Center
Title: "Exploring ion channel structure and gating mechanisms with tarantula toxins"
May 21, 2014
Speaker: Jawdat Al-Bassam, Ph.D., University of California, Davis
Title: "Regulation of the microtubule cytoskeleton through activating intercellular soluble tubulin reserves."
September 17, 2014
Speaker: Justin Du Bois, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, Stanford University
Title: “Turning Toxins into Tools for the Study of Sodium Ion Channels”
2013
February 13, 2013
Speaker: Bruce Cohen, Ph.D., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley
Title: "Next-generation nanocrystals for cellular imaging"
February 20, 2013
Speaker: Francesco Tombola, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine
Title: "Multitasking voltage-sensing domains as proton channels"
March 13, 2013
Speaker: Baldomero Olivera, Ph.D., University of Utah
Title: "Conotoxins and their Ion Channel Targets: Integrating Systems and Molecular Neuroscience using Single-cell Pharmacology"
March 20, 2013
Speaker: Biff Forbush, Ph.D., Yale University
Title: "Structure and Function of Na-K-Cl cotransporters: A beginning"
May 1, 2013
Speaker: James Herrington, Genentech
Title: "Automated electrophysiology in drug discovery: a case study on Kv2 channels in pancreatic hormone secretion"
May 8, 2013
Speaker: Heike Wulff, Ph.D., University of California, Davis
Title: "K+ channel modulators as immunosuppressants and for the treatment of cardiovascular disease"
May 15, 2013
Speaker: Jian Payandeh, Genentech
Title: "Crystal structures of sodium and magnesium channels: insights into selectivity and gating"
September 18, 2013
Speaker: Jerome Badaut, Ph.D., Loma Linda University
Title: "AQP4 and JNK inhibition reduces neurovascular unit dysfunctions after Juvenile traumatic brain injury"
December 3, 2013
Speaker: Bill Zagotta, Ph.D., University of Washington
Title: "Molecular mechanisms of gating in cyclic nucleotide-regulated ion channels"
2011
March 18, 2011
Speaker: Irena Levitan, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago
Title: "Cholesterol regulation of endothelial K channels"
May 6, 2011
Speaker: Hiroaki Misoni, Ph.D., University of Maryland, Baltimore
Title: "Unique trafficking mechanisms govern neuronal ion channel localization"
September 16, 2011
Speaker: William Catterall, Ph.D., University of Washington, School of Medicine
Title: "Voltage-gated Sodium Channels at Atomic Resolution: Structure, Function, and Disease"
2010
February 4, 2010
Speaker: Oded Lewinson, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology
Title: "Heavy metal homeostasis: Acquisition of essential trace elements and extrusion of toxic compounds"
February 18, 2010
Speaker: Christopher Brett, Ph.D., University of Washington
Title: "Ion transport, endocytosis and autism"
February 25, 2010
Speaker: Sudha Chakrapani, Ph.D., University of Chicago
Title: "Understanding gating mechanisms: A structural, functional and dynamic approach"
March 4, 2010
Speaker: Roger A. Bannister, Ph.D., University of Colorado-Denver
Title: "Bi-directional communication between L-type Ca2+ channels and ryanodine receptors in skeletal muscle"
March 15, 2010
Speaker: Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy, Ph.D., University of Washington
Title: "Ion channel structure prediction using the rosetta-membrane method"
March 18, 2010
Speaker: Susy C. Kohout, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Title: "Investigating a new member of the voltage-gated family of proteins, Ci-VSP"
March 29, 2010
Speaker: Ryan Drenan, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology
Title: "Understanding the role of individual nAChR subtypes in the Mammalian Central Nervous System"
April 8, 2010
Speaker: Dominique G. Gagnon, Ph.D., University of Chicago
Title: "Function of a potassium channel with a single Voltage-sensing gate-keeper"
2009
January 9, 2009
Speaker: Douglas Bayliss, Ph.D., University of Virginia Health System
Title: "Regulation of cellular excitability by modulation of background channels: mechanisms and physiological roles"
January 23, 2009
Speaker: Edward N. Pugh, Jr., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Title: "Recent Advances in Cone Photoreceptor Physiology"
February 6, 2009
Speaker: Toshinori Hoshi Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Title: "Modulation of potassium channels by free heme and heme degradation products"
May 1, 2009
Speaker: Stefan Feske, M.D., New York University
Title: "Calcium signals in lymphocyte activation and disease"
May 15, 2009
Speaker: Ege Kavalali, Ph.D., U.T. Southwestern Medical Center
Title: "Synaptic vesicle trafficking and its impact on neurotransmission"
December 10, 2009
Speaker: Randen Patterson, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State Universtiy
Title: "Hypothesis-driven computational biology: Translating the computer to the benchtop"
2008
September 5, 2008
Speaker: Mark Bevensee, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham
Title: "Phospholipid regulation of the Na/bicarbonate cotransporter NBCe1"
September 19, 2008
Speaker: Diana Bautista, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Title: "Molecular mechanisms of touch and pain in mammals"
October 3, 2008
Speaker: Bertil Hille, Ph.D., University of Washington
Title: "G-protein coupled receptors modulate ion channels and many other cellular functions through phosphoinositide lipid signals"
November 7, 2008
Speaker: Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Title: "New Perspectives on PIP2 in cardiac myocytes"
December 5, 2008
Speaker: Colin G. Nichols, Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis
Title: "KATP channels: The exciting molecular link between cell metabolism, diabetes and cardiac arrhythmias"
See: Current Seminars
Make a donation using our secure online system.