<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Murat Tunaboylu & Ben Holland About Murat Tunaboylu "Murat Tunaboylu, Antiverse's CEO, has a software engineering and bioinformatics background. Mid-career, he has worked in finance and developed high-frequency trading systems. After switching to biotech, Murat has built cell imaging software and lab robots to accelerate cancer research and automated Thermo Fisher Scientific’s gene synthesis workflows. He has co-founded consultancy and biotech companies Svarlight and Antiverse. His current focus is to realise Antiverse’s mission: engineering the future of drug discovery." Murat Tunaboylu on the web Antiverse DSV Future of Drug Discovery Podcast Twist Bioscience LinkedIn Twitter Dr. GPCR About Ben Holland "Ben gained his masters in Engineering Science from Oxford, taking a specialisation in information engineering. Following this, he joined an early-stage medical device start-up and in 5 years was responsible for project R&D and managing a focused development team, pursued international strategic partnerships, managed IP matters, helped establish a manufacturing line in Malaysia and is named as inventor on several patents. He then returned to information engineering and has been working in machine learning for nearly 10 years, applying it to antibody generation, analysis, and property prediction since 2017" Ben Holland on the web Antiverse The Antibody Society YT LinkedIn Twitter Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

< Back to Webinars 📅 Tuesday, March 3, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM EST 🤝 Webinar in collaboration with: Celtarys Research Fluorescent Probes for GLP-1R and GIPR Imaging: From Cell Assays to In Vivo Systems Fluorescent tools for imaging endogenous incretin receptors across biological systems Interrogating Incretin Receptor Biology Across Biological Complexity GLP-1 and GIP receptors have emerged as central targets in metabolic medicine, yet their precise localization, nanodomain organization, and functional engagement within complex biological systems remain incompletely understood. Fluorescent chemical probes offer one of the most direct approaches for investigating receptor distribution and dynamics in native contexts — without relying on receptor overexpression or genetic modification. This webinar introduces two families of advanced fluorescent probes developed specifically for working with endogenous GLP-1R and GIPR across a range of biological complexity. Attendees will gain a technical understanding of probe design, selectivity, and validated applications — as well as practical guidance on handling, reconstitution, dilution, and storage to support immediate laboratory deployment. LUXendin Family Red and far-red fluorescent GLP-1R antagonists derived from Exendin4(9–39). Enable high-specificity labeling of endogenous GLP-1R in live and fixed cells, pancreatic islets, and whole-organ preparations — without triggering receptor activation. Available across multiple spectral ranges for confocal, super-resolution, and intravital imaging. daLUXendin Family Fluorescent dual agonists for both GLP-1R and GIPR (daLUXendin544+ and daLUXendin660+), structurally related to tirzepatide. Enable simultaneous visualization of endogenous receptor localization and nanodomain organization in pancreatic islet cells and neural sites of action in vivo. Speakers Dr. Johannes Broichhagen Group Leader Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP), Berlin Dr. Broichhagen trained in chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, completed his doctorate at LMU Munich in 2014, and undertook postdoctoral work at EPFL (Switzerland) and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (Heidelberg). Since 2020, he leads an independent research group at the FMP Berlin. His group focuses on the development of chemical tools — including fluorescent ligands and photopharmacological compounds — to investigate GPCR biology with spatial and temporal precision. He is a principal architect of the LUXendin and daLUXendin probe families. Dr. David Hodson Robert Turner Professor of Diabetic Medicine Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Oxford Dr. Hodson is a veterinary surgeon by training who pursued postdoctoral studies at the CNRS in Montpellier before establishing his independent laboratory at Imperial College London as a Diabetes UK RD Lawrence Fellow. He previously served as Professor of Cellular Metabolism and Institute Deputy Director at the University of Birmingham. His research group develops and applies novel technologies to investigate GLP-1 and GIP receptors — two class B GPCRs central to glucose homeostasis, food intake regulation, and inflammation — within complex tissue environments including the pancreas and brain. His work carries direct translational relevance to diabetes and obesity therapeutics. Organizers Celtarys Research Celtarys develops and commercializes fluorescent chemical tools and related screening services that enable fluorescence-based methods across drug discovery. The company's portfolio is built around high-affinity, selective fluorescent ligands for GPCRs, supporting researchers working at the interface of chemical biology and pharmacology. Broad GPCR fluorescent ligand portfolio across multiple receptor families Fluorescence Polarization, HTRF, and High-Content Screening formats Fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry applications Screening services using proprietary probes in living cells Custom chemical development for probe and ligand creation Dr. GPCR Dr. GPCR is a membership-based nonprofit ecosystem dedicated to advancing GPCR-targeted drug discovery. It provides curated industry intelligence, expert-led masterclasses, and structured engagement opportunities for scientists and biotech leaders working across pharmacology, translational research, and therapeutic development. Curated intelligence on GPCR drug discovery trends and developments Expert-led webinars and masterclasses with leading researchers Structured networking for scientists and biotech professionals Nonprofit model — community-first, member-driven Free membership tier available Previous Webinar Next Webinar Don’t Miss the Next Live Session Dr. GPCR membership gives you access to all upcoming live, interactive webinars. Free. Takes less than a minute to join. Cancel anytime. Sign Up for Free

Eleonora Comeo synthesizes fluorescent ligands to watch adenosine receptor pharmacology happen in living cells - and explains why targeting these receptors keeps failing. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Eleonora Comeo: Fluorescent Ligands and the Pharmacology of Adenosine Receptors Adenosine receptors are among the most studied GPCRs in the human body - and among the most difficult to drug. The four subtypes, A1, A2A, A2B, and A3, are expressed across virtually every tissue and implicated in conditions ranging from Parkinson's disease to ischemic heart disease to cancer. Over 40 crystal structures of the A2A receptor alone have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank. Clinical trials have run for decades. And yet approved therapies that selectively target these receptors remain remarkably scarce. One reason is that selectivity in this family is not just a matter of receptor subtype. It is also a matter of G protein coupling, tissue context, and the signaling assay used to measure affinity in the first place - measurements that shift depending on the experimental system. Eleonora Comeo, PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham and the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is developing fluorescent ligands to address that gap directly - tools designed to visualize adenosine receptor pharmacology at the single-cell level, in environments that better reflect where these receptors actually work. For Comeo, who entered GPCR research without any background in the field and built her PhD around chemistry she could hold in her hand and watch working in a cell, the tools are both scientific instruments and the reason she stayed. ABOUT THE GUEST Eleonora Comeo is a PhD candidate jointly enrolled at the University of Nottingham and the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, working across the groups of Barrie Kellam and Steve Hill. A trained medicinal chemist and pharmacist, her research focuses on the design and synthesis of fluorescent ligands for adenosine A1 and A2A receptors, with the goal of developing chemical tools capable of interrogating receptor pharmacology in physiologically relevant cellular environments. Her work integrates organic synthesis with NanoBRET, SNAP-tag labeling, confocal microscopy, and super-resolution imaging to study receptor localization, internalization, and binding at endogenous and heterologously expressed levels. SCIENTIFIC THEMES OF THE CONVERSATION Fluorescent ligands as pharmacological tools - how synthetic chemistry produces molecules that make receptor behavior visible Adenosine receptor subtype pharmacology - the four subtypes, their G protein coupling profiles, and why ubiquity creates selectivity problems The tumor microenvironment and adenosine-mediated immune suppression - why A2A and A2B are being targeted in oncology Assay dependency and the instability of affinity measurements across experimental systems Endogenous receptor expression in heterologous cell systems - how HEK cell biology confounds fluorescent ligand screening Receptor dimerization - from A2A/dopamine D2 in Parkinson's to A1/A2A in cardio protection, and what remains unresolved KEY INSIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION 1. Visibility changes what pharmacology can ask Fluorescent ligands do more than confirm receptor binding - they allow researchers to follow receptors through internalization, track membrane localization, and observe behavior at the single-cell level using super-resolution imaging. Comeo describes the moment she saw her synthesized ligand labeling the cell membrane as one of the most rewarding points in the PhD, precisely because it closed the loop between synthesis and function in a way that binding numbers alone cannot. 2. Ubiquity is adenosine pharmacology's greatest liability The same properties that make adenosine receptors scientifically compelling - their presence in nearly every tissue, their involvement in nearly every major disease class - are what make selective targeting so difficult. Activating or blocking an adenosine receptor for one indication routinely produces off-target effects in another tissue, because the receptor is already doing something important there. The clinical attrition rate in this family reflects that problem more than it reflects a failure of chemistry. 3. Affinity is not a fixed property - it is assay-dependent The apparent affinity of adenosine for its own receptors shifts depending on which downstream signaling endpoint is being measured. A cAMP assay and a binding assay using the same receptor and the same ligand can return different affinity values. Comeo points to this as an underappreciated complication in the field - one that matters not just for scientific interpretation but for how pharmacological classifications like "low affinity" and "high affinity" are assigned across the A2A and A2B subtypes. 4. Tumor cells use adenosine receptors to silence the immune response In the tumor microenvironment, adenosine concentrations are abnormally high. That excess adenosine activates A2A and A2B receptors expressed on immune cells - and that activation suppresses the immune response, allowing tumors to grow unchallenged. Dual A2A/A2B antagonists are now in clinical trials specifically to interrupt this mechanism. Comeo describes this as one of the areas where she most hopes the field can finally validate the receptors as clinical targets, after years of trials that have not delivered. 5. HEK cells are a known confound that still catch researchers out HEK cells endogenously express A2A and A2B receptors at meaningful levels - a fact that complicates fluorescent ligand screening, binding assays, and any experiment where receptor selectivity is the question. Comeo's work uses selective antagonist controls and NanoBRET-tagged receptor constructs to distinguish transfected receptor signal from endogenous background. She also describes recent work in her group using CRISPR-edited cell lines to express receptors at endogenous promoter levels, producing reliable NanoBRET signal even at physiological expression - a methodological advance with implications for how the field studies GPCRs in native-like contexts. 6. Receptor dimerization raises questions the standard pharmacology framework does not address Adenosine receptors form both homodimers and heterodimers with other GPCRs, including A2A with dopamine D2 (a complex investigated extensively in the context of Parkinson's) and A1 with A2A (under investigation for cardioprotection in ischemic heart disease). The biological implications of many of these complexes are still being resolved. During the conversation, an unresolved question surfaced: when a tagged receptor is transfected into HEK cells that endogenously express the same or related subtypes, can the exogenous and endogenous receptors dimerize - and if so, does that alter the pharmacological readout? Neither Comeo nor the host claimed an answer. The question remains open. 7. The hardest transition in a PhD is learning that not knowing the answer is the point Comeo describes the shift from undergraduate training - where not knowing the answer is a liability - to doctoral research, where not knowing the answer is the entire reason the project exists. It is, she notes, a more difficult transition than it sounds, and one that takes time to internalize. The advice she offers to incoming PhD students centers not on technique but on disposition: stay curious about what others are working on, ask for help without embarrassment, and accept that the project is a shared endeavor even when it feels isolating. EPISODE TIMELINE Timestamps are AI-generated from the transcript and should be verified against the final edited audio before publication. 00:00 Introduction 00:44 From Bologna to Nottingham - following her heart into GPCR research 06:49 One year at Monash - starting fresh on the other side of the world 10:02 Adenosine receptor pharmacology and the challenge of targeting four subtypes 16:56 A2A vs A2B - affinity differences, tumor microenvironment, and immune escape 22:08 Why affinity measurements shift depending on the assay 27:09 Synthesizing fluorescent ligands - from crystal structures to glowing molecules 31:03 Following receptors into the cell with super-resolution imaging 36:25 Receptor dimerization - A2A/D2 in Parkinson's, A1/A2A in cardioprotection, and one open question 41:26 Finishing the PhD - what comes next and what she'll miss 42:42 Advice for PhD students - resilience, collaboration, and not fearing the unknown 54:44 The dopamine rush that keeps scientists coming back SELECTED QUOTES "I completely fell in love with that research. And I felt three months wasn't enough for me. So I asked whether they had a PhD opportunity - and here I am." "Just because you can see them. They're really useful because you can see them - you can use them to visualize the process you're interested in. That's what makes it so rewarding." "It's important to understand, in your cellular context, what the expression of the other receptor is - the one you're interested in - because otherwise you can get confounding outputs." "In chemistry, it's like when you finally see the NMR of your structure without anything but your compound - it's just perfect. You can feel the shivering behind your spine. You would just like to run around screaming." About this episode Eleonora Comeo is a doctoral candidate in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery in the joint program of the University of Nottingham in the UK and Monash University in Australia. We sat down to chat about GPCRs, synthesizing labeled ligands, and her unique position that allows her to work with GPCR scientists on 2 continents. We also touched on how COVID-19 affected her Ph.D. work. Eleonora Comeo on the web LinkedIn ResearchGate Pubmed Google Scholar Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

How academia and biotech collaborate to scale GPCR tools—covering fluorescence assays, GPCR internalization, and real-world distribution. Episode 3 of 3. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Scaling GLP 1 Receptor Tools Through Academia Industry Collaboration How do GPCR tools move from individual academic labs into broad use across the research community? In this episode of the Dr. GPCR Podcast , leaders from academia and biotech unpack what effective collaboration really looks like when developing, validating, and distributing GPCR research tools. Joining the conversation are Maria Majellaro (CSO and co-founder of Celtarys Research), Johannes Broichhagen, and David Hodson. Together, we discuss how gpcr drug discovery advances when chemists, biologists, and industry partners align around rigor, trust, and accessibility. The episode explores gpcr internalization , fluorescence-based probe design, and how functional assay development benefits from scalable distribution rather than ad-hoc sharing. Listeners will walk away with a clearer view of how academic innovation translates into tools for high-throughput screening , and why availability can be as impactful as discovery itself. Why This Matters How GPCR tools lose impact when distribution and access aren’t planned from the start Why fluorescence-based assays outperform antibodies for studying receptor localization and trafficking What changes when academia and biotech share priorities instead of working in parallel When industry partnerships become essential for reproducibility and scale The moment when availability—not innovation—becomes the bottleneck in GPCR research Who Should Listen This episode is for scientists and leaders who are: Navigating the transition from academic tool development to real-world adoption Balancing innovation with validation in GPCR assay design Building reagents that must work in complex tissues, not just simplified models Exploring academia–industry collaboration but want to understand how it works in practice This conversation is part three of a three episode series produced in collaboration with our partners at Celtarys Research . 🎧 Listen to Part 1 with Dr. Hudson 🎧 Catch up on Part 2 with Dr. Broichhagen About the Guests Maria Majellaro, PhD Dr. Maria Majellaro is the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Celtarys Research , a biotech spin-off from the University of Santiago de Compostela focused on advanced fluorescent ligands and GPCR research tools. She earned her PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Bari in 2018, including research training at the CIQUS Research Center in Spain. Following her PhD, she joined Prof. Eddy Sotelo’s group at CIQUS as a postdoctoral researcher, where the scientific foundations of Celtarys were established. Since co-founding the company in 2021, she has led all scientific activities, from proprietary technology development to international collaborations and funded research projects. Her work centers on GPCR modulators, synthetic chemistry, and enabling robust biological assays through high-quality chemical tools. Johannes Broichhagen, PhD Dr. Johannes Broichhagen is a group leader at the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP) in Berlin. Trained as a chemist, he studied at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg and completed his PhD at LMU Munich, followed by postdoctoral research at EPFL in Switzerland. His research focuses on bottom-up chemical tool development for imaging and interrogating GPCRs and other cell-surface proteins in complex biological systems. By combining fluorophore design, ligand chemistry, and pharmacology, his work enables precise visualization of receptor localization, dynamics, and function across tissues. David Hodson, PhD Dr. David Hodson is the Robert Turner Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the University of Oxford and a leading expert in metabolic GPCR biology. Originally trained as a veterinary surgeon, he conducted postdoctoral research at the CNRS in Montpellier before establishing independent laboratories at Imperial College London and later the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on class B GPCRs, including the GLP-1 and GIP receptors, with an emphasis on understanding how these receptors operate within complex tissues such as the pancreas and brain. By integrating advanced tools and translational biology, his work directly informs therapeutic strategies for diabetes and obesity. Guests on The Web Maria Majellaro LinkedIn ResearchGate Ecosystem Johannes Broichhagen LinkedIn Google Scholar Lab Website Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP) Profile David Hodson Radcliffe Department of Medicine Islet Biology Lab University of Birmingham Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

Dr. Jennifer Pluznick explains why olfactory receptors in the kidney are more than curiosities — they sense gut-microbe metabolites, modulate blood pressure, and are forcing a rethink of what "smell" actually means. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Jennifer Pluznick: Olfactory Receptors in the Kidney and the Gut-Microbe Signal Olfactory receptors are known by a single address — the nose. But a microarray Dr. Jennifer Pluznick ran as a postdoctoral fellow placed them, surprisingly, at the top of a kidney gene expression list. She almost dismissed the result as an artifact. Instead, she followed it, and the decision has shaped the direction of her lab at Johns Hopkins ever since. In this conversation, Dr. Pluznick explores what changes when olfactory receptors are treated not as smell receptors but as general-purpose chemosensors — scattered across the body and tuned to ligands circulating in the blood. She walks through the kidney ORs her group has connected to renin release, to proximal tubule glucose handling, and to blood pressure regulation. One of those receptors is activated by small-molecule metabolites produced by gut microbes, a finding she still calls mind-blowing and that she continues to unpack. The conversation also surfaces the field's quiet bottlenecks: the trafficking problem that traps ORs in the ER, the orthology gap between 1,000 mouse receptors and 350 human ones, and the reagents — antibodies, agonists, antagonists — that the community still does not have. About the Guest Dr. Jennifer Pluznick is Associate Professor of Physiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her lab studies the role of understudied GPCRs — olfactory receptors, taste receptors, and orphan GPRs — in kidney physiology. Her group has linked specific kidney olfactory receptors to blood pressure regulation via the renin-angiotensin pathway, to glucose handling in the proximal tubule, and to circulating metabolites generated by the gut microbiota. She first encountered olfactory receptors in the kidney during her postdoctoral training, and her lab continues to deorphanize and functionally characterize them today. Scientific Themes of the Conversation Olfactory receptors as general-purpose chemosensors outside the nose Deorphanization strategies for kidney-expressed GPCRs The renin-angiotensin axis and OR-mediated blood pressure control Gut microbiota metabolites as endogenous GPCR ligands Receptor trafficking and the ER-retention problem for ectopically expressed ORs Mouse-to-human orthology in a highly expanded receptor family Key Insights from the Conversation A surprise at the top of a microarray. When Dr. Pluznick's postdoc screen flagged olfactory receptors as top hits in a kidney disease cell line, her first instinct was to distrust the data. A single comment from her advisor — olfactory receptors in the kidney could actually be really cool — reframed a possible artifact as a research program. Reframing olfactory receptors as chemosensors. The name "olfactory receptor" narrows the imagination. Dr. Pluznick argues they are better understood as chemical sensors that happen to dominate the nose. Once reframed that way, ectopic expression in tissues like the kidney stops seeming strange and starts making sense. Two kidney ORs with physiology attached. One OR her lab has studied modulates renin release and therefore blood pressure; another regulates glucose handling through a transporter family that includes a validated type 2 diabetes target. Both started as receptors with no known ligand, no known localization, and no reason to expect physiological relevance. Gut microbes at the other end of the signal. The OR linked to blood pressure is activated by small-molecule metabolites produced by gut bacteria at low millimolar circulating concentrations. That makes blood pressure regulation, in part, a readout of microbial metabolism — a connection Dr. Pluznick describes as something that still blows her mind. Trafficking as a field-wide bottleneck. Exogenously expressed ORs tend to get stuck in the ER. Matsunami's RTP1S chaperone, the Rho tag, and the Pluznick lab's Lucy tag — a cleavable leucine-rich signal sequence developed by a rotation student — each help, but no combination fully solves the problem for every OR. The trafficking failure itself may encode something about how tightly ORs are regulated in olfactory sensory neurons. The orthology gap. Mice have ~1,000 olfactory receptors; humans have ~350. Sequence-based orthology calls are often ambiguous, and in the Pluznick lab's hands, putative orthologs frequently fail to share ligand profiles. Finding functional orthologs — not just sequence matches — is non-trivial, and it matters for anyone hoping to translate kidney OR biology into a human drug. Follow the data that surprises you. Dr. Pluznick's advice to early-career scientists is shaped by her own near-dismissal of an inconvenient microarray result. Established assumptions about where a receptor "belongs" are often what stop a discovery from being recognized as one. Episode Timeline Timestamps were generated using AI for readability. 00:00 Opening: newsletter, season close, and welcome 02:13 Becoming a scientist as a first-gen college student 04:17 The case for chasing understudied GPCRs in the kidney 06:18 "Olfactory receptors will always be my first love" 08:45 Renin, blood pressure, and a glucose-handling receptor 12:14 Localization and ligand screening when there's no antibody 17:06 What happens to OR expression in a disease kidney 19:56 The orthology problem: 1,000 mouse ORs, 350 human ones 23:08 RTP1S, the Rho tag, and the Lucy tag 29:20 One-neuron-one-receptor and the tight regulation of smell 36:57 The aha moment: gut microbes, a GPCR, and blood pressure 39:58 Diversity as everyone's responsibility Selected Quotes "I famously said that I wasn't sure I could really trust the data because these crazy receptors came out as the top hits. But my postdoc advisor, who's much wiser than I, said, 'olfactory receptors in the kidney, though — that could be really cool.' And somehow when he said it, it sounded like a much better idea." "Olfactory receptors as a class will always be my first love in terms of GPCRs." "Your blood pressure regulation is somehow tied to the activity of your gut microbes. And that is something that still kind of blows my mind." "You need to follow your data, even when it surprises you, even when it might go against what you assumed to be true before you started the experiment." About this episode Dr. Pluznick discovered that olfactory receptors in mice are also expressed in their kidneys and blood vessels. Her research is focused on the role of chemosensory GPCRs in regulating renal and cardiovascular function, and identifying renal/cardiovascular olfactory receptor ligands, and relating them to whole-animal physiology. This work contributes to a better understanding of how the kidney helps maintain homeostasis in humans. Jennifer is currently an assistant professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Truman State University and earned her Ph.D. in renal physiology from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She then spent five years training as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Michael Caplan at Yale University, where she studied both renal physiology and sensory biology systems and focused on olfaction. Dr. Jennifer Pluznick on the web John Hopkins Pluznick Lab Pubmed Ted Talk Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

A conversation with Prof. David Hodson on visualizing GLP-1 and GIP receptors in pancreatic islets and brain circuits to advance GPCR-targeted therapies for diabetes and obesity. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Visualizing GLP-1 & GIP Receptors in Islets and Brain In this episode, Professor David Hodson discusses how GLP-1 and GIP receptors regulate metabolism across the pancreas and brain, and why visualizing receptor localization and signaling in real tissues is essential for advancing GPCR drug discovery . His team develops fluorescence-based and chemically engineered tools to study gpcr internalization and ligand engagement in intact islets and neuronal circuits — insights that inform next-generation functional assay development and translational therapeutic design. The conversation also highlights the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in accelerating innovation in diabetes and obesity research. Why this matters How receptor distribution in islets and brain circuits shapes incretin hormone drug effects Why visualization tools changed our understanding of GPCR signaling in metabolic tissues What collaborative chemistry enabled in designing receptor-targeted fluorescent ligands The moment when structural and imaging evidence clarified unexpected glucagon-derived peptide behavior How future metabolic therapies may evolve based on receptor cross-talk and tissue-specific engagement Who should listen Navigated complex datasets where interpretation depended on biological context Balanced innovation with the need for reproducible, well-controlled functional assays Worked across disciplines where chemistry, pharmacology, and physiology converge Questioned how drug action differs in real tissues vs. recombinant cell lines …this episode will resonate. About David Hodson Prof. David Hodson is the Robert Turner Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the University of Oxford , working within the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism. Originally trained as a Veterinary Surgeon , he completed postdoctoral research at the CNRS in Montpellier before establishing his independent laboratory at Imperial College London as a Diabetes UK RD Lawrence Fellow. He later served as Professor of Cellular Metabolism and Institute Deputy Director at the University of Birmingham. His group develops imaging and chemical biology tools to reveal how GLP-1 and GIP receptors operate within complex tissues, with direct relevance to type 2 diabetes and obesity therapy . David Hodson on the Web Radcliffe Department of Medicine Islet Biology Lab University of Birmingham Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

Chris Tate co-founded Heptares after reading one paper on a Friday afternoon. This conversation covers thermostabilization, cryoEM, and GPCR structural biology. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Chris Tate: Thermostabilizing GPCRs for Structural Biology For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, GPCR structural biology was not a biology problem - it was a stability problem. Receptors that fell apart in any useful detergent could not be crystallized, and without crystals, there were no structures. Chris Tate spent years working on membrane proteins that were simply too unstable to study by crystallography, and the question of how to solve that became the organizing problem of his career. The answer came from an unexpected source: a paper on thermostabilization of an unrelated membrane protein, read on a Friday afternoon in the library. That insight led to a systematic mutation screen, a 21-degree improvement in receptor thermostability, and eventually the co-founding of Heptares - a company now running over 250 GPCR structures and six clinical candidates. This conversation covers how thermostabilization changed what was structurally possible, how cryoEM then redrew the map again, and what the first solved Class D GPCR dimer reveals about receptor architecture at its most unexpected. ABOUT THE GUEST Chris Tate is a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, where his research focuses on the structural and biochemical study of membrane proteins, with particular emphasis on GPCRs. His work developed the thermostabilization platform - a systematic approach to engineering receptor stability for structural biology - that enabled the first high-resolution crystal structures of multiple GPCRs in defined conformational states. He co-founded Heptares (now Sosei Heptares) in 2007, a company that has since produced over 250 GPCR structures and advanced six candidates into clinical trials. His current structural work extends to Class D GPCRs, including the recently solved first dimer architecture in this receptor family. SCIENTIFIC THEMES OF THE CONVERSATION Membrane protein instability as the overlooked bottleneck in GPCR structural biology The thermostabilization platform - from concept to systematic mutation screen From academic discovery to co-founding Heptares: decision, funding, and growth CryoEM and the conformational states that crystallography could never access Class D GPCR architecture - what a dimer with no prior blueprint looks like What remains unsolved: why drug discovery still fails in late-stage clinical trials KEY INSIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION Stability, not biology, was the bottleneck The reason GPCR structures took so long was not scientific complexity - it was that the receptors destroyed themselves in every detergent needed for crystallography. Tate's work reframed the problem: before asking what a receptor does, you first have to ask whether it can survive the conditions required to study it. A Friday afternoon and a paper on an unrelated protein The thermostabilization insight did not come from the lab. It came from Tate's habit of spending Friday afternoons in the library reading outside his immediate field. A 1999 paper on thermostability of diacylglycerol kinase - a protein with no connection to GPCRs - produced a light-bulb recognition that reshaped his entire research direction. 21 degrees changed what was chemically possible Thermostabilizing the beta-adrenergic receptor by 21 degrees Celsius was not a marginal improvement. It meant the receptor could survive in harsh short-chain detergents that had previously killed it instantly - including SDS. That stability was what made crystallization tractable and what became the foundation of Heptares. CryoEM opened conformational space that crystallography had locked out The arrestin-coupled state of a GPCR - a structure that required the agonist-bound receptor to be held in its active conformation - could never have come from crystallography. CryoEM removed that constraint, and Tate argues the field is still at the beginning of what this means: inactive-state structures, full conformational sets, and throughputs that were previously inconceivable. A Class D GPCR dimer with no prior blueprint The first solved structure of a Class D GPCR - a yeast receptor from family D - turned out to be a dimer, with an architecture that breaks the rules of class A receptor biology. The dimer interface sits on helix 1, involves a domain-swapped N-terminus and helix 7, is twice the area of the G protein coupling interface, and positions helix 4 over 20 angstroms from where it appears in any known class A receptor. A PhD student solved it in under two years. Drug discovery's real bottleneck is not structural Tate is direct about where the field now stands: accumulating GPCR structures is no longer the limiting step in drug discovery. The harder problem is understanding the human body well enough to predict why a compound that works in vitro fails in Phase 2 or Phase 3 - and solving that will require tools and systems that structural biology alone cannot provide. Science requires a skin like a rhino Tate's advice to young scientists is not procedural - it is temperamental. Science is brutal, things fail for months, and the only way through is genuine passion for being in the lab. He still asks every candidate who wants to join his group one question: do you know, in chemical terms, how a miniprep kit works? The answer reveals whether someone is curious about science or merely using it. EPISODE TIMELINE Timestamps are AI-generated from the transcript and may vary slightly from the final edited audio. 01:35 Meet Tate - membrane protein biochemist, MRC LMB 02:12 Career origin: from calcium ATPase to bacterial transporters 13:52 Path into GPCRs - instability as the bottleneck nobody was solving 17:00 The Friday afternoon library paper that changed GPCR structural biology 24:21 Thermostabilizing the beta receptor by 21 degrees - in any detergent, including SDS 25:56 Co-founding Heptares - the canteen conversation and the venture capital meeting 32:02 Raising £21M during the 2009 financial crisis 37:43 The cryoEM revolution - why the arrestin-coupled structure could never have come from a crystal 45:17 Unpublished: a Class D GPCR dimer - one PhD student, 18 months, a Nature paper 49:05 Advice for young scientists: what it actually takes to survive science 54:35 The curiosity test: do you know how your miniprep kit works? 58:34 Three aha moments - a diffraction pattern, a thermostabilization screen, and a synchrotron SELECTED QUOTES "None of my best ideas have ever arisen from being in the lab. Never. Because when you're in the lab, you're thinking about what's in front of you." "I don't think ever in my life I will ever write an application and just produce so much more than what I wrote in the original application." "Science is brutal. It is absolutely brutal. Things don't work for months. You have to be robust, you have to have a skin like a rhino sometimes." "When you see the GPCR field, all you see is this accelerating number of structures and information, and that is just going to get faster and faster. And I think that is now the minor part." About this episode Dr. Chris Tate obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 1989 and then moved to the University of Cambridge (Dept. of Biochemistry) to work on bacterial sugar transporters. After obtaining a research fellowship at Girton College (Cambridge) he moved to the LMB in 1992 to work in Richard Henderson's group on the serotonin transporter. Chris also worked on the E. coli multidrug transporter EmrE and obtained both 2D and 3D crystals as well as a 3D structure using cryo-EM. In 2005 he started working on the development of conformational thermostabilization of GPCRs, which resulted in the structure of the β1-adrenoceptor. Subsequent work has focused on understanding the molecular basis of GPCR pharmacology through structure determination of the β1-adrenoceptor and adenosine A2A receptor in multiple different conformations bound to ligands of different efficacy. In 2016 mini-G proteins were developed as a tool for the structure determination of GPCRs in the fully active state. Structures have been determined by X-ray crystallography of receptors coupled to either mini-Gs or mini-Go, and also by electron cryo-microscopy of receptors coupled to mini G protein bound to βγ subunits. Recent work includes the first structure determination of a GPCR bound to a biased agonist and coupled to arrestin and also the first structure of a Class D receptor. Join me to learn more about Chris’s work and his role in founding Heptares which was later acquired by Sosei and became Sosei Heptares . Dr. Chris Tate on the web LinkedIn ResearchGate Pubmed Google Scholar Sosei Heptares Wikipedia MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

From chemokine receptors at Rockefeller to founding Dr. GPCR during COVID — the career arc behind the ecosystem built for the field's unreached receptors. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Yamina Berchiche: Beyond the Lab — From Chemokine Receptors to the Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Dr. Yamina Berchiche spent two decades working on G protein-coupled receptors at the bench — training that spanned chemokine receptor conformational dynamics at the Université de Montréal, CXCR3 splice-variant signaling at Rockefeller University in Dr. Tom Sakmar's lab, CRISPR knockout generation at NIAID, and class B peptide receptor work at Generate Biomedicines. Across those stops, one observation kept resurfacing: the GPCR field is enormous — roughly 400 non-olfactory receptors — but clinical drug discovery has reached only about 166 of them, leaving more than 250 receptors unstudied at anything close to therapeutic depth. This conversation traces the scientific arc that led Dr. Berchiche to leave the bench after a COVID-era redundancy, and examines the motivation behind founding Dr. GPCR — an ecosystem of podcasts, newsletters, summits, and working spaces designed to give the field connective tissue it has historically lacked. For Dr. Berchiche, this work is personal: the receptors she helped characterize for years belong to a family she believes has been collectively underserved by the infrastructure around it, and building that infrastructure has become a full-time scientific question in its own right. About the Guest Dr. Yamina Berchiche is the founder of the Dr. GPCR ecosystem and the host of the Dr. GPCR Podcast. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Université de Montréal, where she trained in Dr. Nikolaus Heveker's lab at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center on chemokine receptor structure–function relationships, with extensive collaborative work in Dr. Michel Bouvier's lab on BRET-based conformational readouts. She completed postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University in Dr. Tom Sakmar's lab, where she characterized the signaling diversity of three alternative splice variants of CXCR3. Her career has moved through academic pharmacology, a research fellowship in B-cell molecular immunology at NIAID, and a senior scientist role at Generate Biomedicines, where she worked on class B peptide receptor engineering using AI-driven protein design. She now builds scientific community infrastructure for the GPCR field. Scientific Themes of the Conversation Chemokine receptor redundancy and the shift toward functional selectivity as a framework Splice variants as signaling variants — CXCR3 as a case study for transcript-level diversity The orphan-majority problem in GPCR drug discovery — why ~250 non-olfactory receptors remain outside clinical attention Career architecture for bench pharmacologists moving beyond academia and biotech Scientific community as infrastructure — what connective tissue a 400-receptor field actually needs Assay design as the lever that shifts conceptual frameworks Key Insights from the Conversation Rejection as redirection. The summer placement Dr. Berchiche didn't get in Michel Bouvier's lab led her to Nikolaus Heveker's newly opened lab at CHU Sainte-Justine, where she was the first student. The lab had no equipment, only stacks of bills on every bench — and a research program on chemokines and chemokine receptors that would define her career. The redundancy assumption crumbled under better assays. The chemokine system — roughly 50 ligands for 20 receptors — was framed for decades as redundant because multiple chemokines bind multiple receptors. Dr. Berchiche's thesis work on CXCR4 mutants and her PhD characterization of natural chemokines binding CCR2B showed the opposite: distinct ligands activate distinct signaling outputs, and functional selectivity was quietly hiding inside what had been called promiscuity. Splice variants aren't just structural — they signal differently. Her Rockefeller work on the three alternative splice variants of CXCR3, initially prompted by a simple question from Tom Sakmar, demonstrated that variants encoded by the same gene can recruit different signaling outputs in response to the same ligands. The implication: transcript-level diversity is itself a signaling mechanism, not a cloning artifact to be collapsed away. The 250-receptor problem sits in plain sight. Of roughly 400 non-olfactory GPCRs, only about 166 are being targeted or studied for clinical application. The remaining 250+ are not obscure — they are simply not connected to drug-discovery momentum. This gap, visible in the 2017 mapping work by Dr. Alexander Hauser and colleagues, is the motivating tension behind Dr. GPCR. The 30,000-foot view requires leaving the bench. After nearly two decades in the lab, Dr. Berchiche found that deep focus on one project was no longer fulfilling. The bench scientist's perspective — which she explicitly values — comes at the cost of the field-level view that ecosystem-building requires, and choosing between them turned out to be a real career architecture decision rather than a detour. Community is scientific infrastructure, not marketing. A podcast, a monthly newsletter, and a virtual summit are not promotional surfaces. They are the connective tissue a 400-receptor field uses to exchange techniques, ideas, and trust across institutional boundaries. Without that tissue, GPCRs stay siloed by receptor family and by lab. Building during a pandemic is a design constraint, not a footnote. Dr. GPCR was founded in March 2020 after a COVID-era redundancy at Generate Biomedicines. Early episodes were recorded in a Toyota Prius parked outside a gym with public Wi-Fi, and then in a closet studio her husband built so she could keep the AC running without bleeding background noise into the audio. The ecosystem's physical origins are inseparable from its founding conviction. Episode Timeline Timestamps were generated using AI for readability. 00:00 Introduction 02:25 The closet studio and what's in the talk 04:00 From Oradea to Montreal — the geography of a GPCR career 06:30 An empty lab and the chemokine redundancy problem 09:00 A master's, old-school molecular biology, and an accelerated JBC paper 11:00 CCR2B, functional selectivity, and a stellar reviewer moment 14:00 Rockefeller, CXCR3, and three splice variants that weren't the same 17:00 NIH and the pull toward a 30,000-foot view of the field 21:00 COVID, redundancy, and the 250 GPCRs nobody studies 23:08 Building the Dr. GPCR ecosystem 32:28 Q&A — preparing an episode, funding, and what's next 46:53 Recording Brian Roth from a Prius — the closet-studio origin story Selected Quotes "You have 400 non-olfactory GPCRs. Only about 166 of them are being targeted and studied for clinical applications. But you have 250-plus receptors that are not well characterized enough and are not considered for the treatment of any diseases." "If you want to advance the field and you want to drug GPCRs better, the point is not to show that you can pipette, but the point is to get to that result." "At NIH, I decided that I wanted to go what you'd call the dark side, which I don't think it's the dark side." "Brian throughout his career was told so many times that he should quit science. And thank God he did not quit science. That's the kind of story that I like to share in the podcast." About this episode GPCRs have played a central role in my scientific career ever since I took Dr. Michel Bouvier’s class as an undergraduate student at the University of Montreal in early 2000. During the past 2 decades, my research mainly focused on chemokine receptor structure/function relationships. For the purposes of this presentation, I will walk you through my various career experiences and include the skills I learned during each experience, which ultimately led me to found Dr. GPCR. Last, I will give an overview of the various programs we established at Dr. GPCR, present our team as well as provide you with a sneak peek of our future podcast guests and more. I gave a talk on October 12th at the 3rd ERNEST meeting about the Dr.GPCR Ecosystem . I want to say thank you to the ERNEST meeting organizers for the invitation with special thanks to Dr. Martha Summer and Dr. Alexander Hauser , and Luise Wagner . For more information about the ERNEST network, visit https://ernest-gpcr.eu/ . Dr. Yamina Berchiche on the web D r. GPCR Ecosystem Member Website LinkedIn Publications Twitter Facebook Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Arthur Christopoulos About Dr. Arthur Christopoulos " Arthur Christopoulos is the Professor of Analytical Pharmacology and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Australia. His research focuses on novel paradigms of drug action at GPCRs, particularly allosteric modulation and biased agonism, and incorporates computational and mathematical modelling, structural and chemical biology, molecular and cellular pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and preclinical models of behaviour and disease. His work has been applied to studies encompassing neurological and psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic pain and addiction. He has received substantial, long-term support from international and national competitive, charitable and commercial sources, as well as being academic co-founder of three GPCR-focussed biotechnology companies. Professor Christopoulos has over 360 publications, including in leading international journals such as Nature,Science and Cell, and has delivered over 180 invited presentations. He has served on the Editorial Board of 8 international journals and was a Councillor of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR). He has also been the recipient of multiple awards, including the John J. Abel Award and the Goodman and Gilman Award from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; the Rand Medal from the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists; the British Pharmacological Society’s Gaddum Memorial Award; the IUPHAR Sir James Black Analytical Pharmacology Lecturer; the GSK Award for Research Excellence and a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) from the University of Athens. Since 2014, Clarivate Analytics have annually named him a Highly Cited Researcher in ‘Pharmacology & Toxicology’, and in 2021 also named him a Highly Cited Researcher in the additional category of ‘Biology & Biochemistry’. In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, in 2018 as a Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, and in 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science for his seminal contributions to drug discovery. In 2023, he was elected a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. " Dr. Arthur Christopoulos on the web Monash University Wikipedia Google Scholar LinkedIn Dr. GPCR AI Summary AI-generated content may be inaccurate or misleading. Always check for accuracy. Quick recap Yamina and Arthur from Monash University discussed Arthur's career journey, the importance of hard work, failure, and differentiation in academic and personal lives, and the value of international conferences. They also explored the significance of translating fundamental discoveries into clinical applications, the potential of new drugs, and the unique challenges within universities. Additionally, they discussed the importance of hiring based on differentiation, impact, and interest, the need for workforce development, and the potential of involving junior scientists and postdocs in their podcast. Lastly, they touched upon the global challenges of healthcare workforce growth, climate change, and emerging psychiatric disorders, as well as the importance of recording lectures and making pre-lesson materials available to students. Next steps - Yamina will share notes about PRISM and presentability with Arthur. - Arthur will share the story of PRISM's development and its impact on the field with Yamina. - Yamina will send an invite for a follow-up meeting with Arthur next Saturday at 9 PM. - Arthur and Yamina will prepare for the next meeting, focusing on the concept of biased agonism and discussing Dr. GPCR and the charity status. - Yamina will attempt to book Denise for a future podcast episode. Summary Arthur's Career Journey and Transition to Dean Yamina introduced Arthur to her team and discussed the use of a particular tool for meeting summaries. Arthur shared his career journey from pharmacy to becoming a professor, highlighting the influence of his mentors and the importance of his postdoctoral experience. They discussed the value of hard work, failure, and the significance of differentiation in their personal and academic lives. Towards the end, they focused on Arthur's transition to become Dean and his decision to move from Australia to the United States for a postdoctoral position. Postdoctoral Position, Scientific Dynamics, and New Drug Targets Arthur shared his decision to undertake a postdoctoral position with Nigel Bird's lab in the UK and his experiences of meeting influential figures during his time in the US. He and Yamina discussed the importance of preserving original work, the value of international conferences, and the dynamics between junior and senior scientists in a research environment. They also shared their admiration for the work of a mutual friend and discussed the history of muscarinic receptors, specifically focusing on the role of a compound that Arthur received from Fred. Lastly, they discussed the progress of new drugs targeting specific receptors for various diseases, with Arthur sharing insights on Eli Lilly's compound, Xanomeline, and the potential of M4 PAM for psychosis. Collaborative Research and Translational Approach Arthur and Yamina from Monash University discussed their collaborative approach to scientific research, emphasizing the benefits of combining their complementary skills and interests. They shared their unconventional approaches to research, including the creation of a critical mass of GPCR researchers in Australia and the initiation of a successful series of conferences. They also discussed the relocation of some university labs to facilitate collaboration and overcome the siloed department structure. Additionally, they explored the unique culture and structure of their Institute, highlighting its translational approach to research and its capacity to translate research into therapeutic commercialization. Lastly, Arthur shared three significant moments that shaped his career, including the evolution and impact of analytical pharmacology, particularly highlighting the role of Prism, a data analysis tool. Podcast Format, Team Culture, and Science Yamina and Arthur concluded their discussion and decided to take a short break. They talked about the format and length of their podcast, their professional interests, and their recent successful bid to bring Moderna to their university. They also explored the idea of starting a similar talk show format to 'Between Two Ferns', the importance of maintaining team culture, and the potential health issues among well-known scientists. Lastly, they discussed the growth and development of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the importance of knowing when to let go in scientific experiments, and the idea of a panel for building and incubating companies. Arthur's Pandemic Journey and Global Challenges Yamina and Arthur discussed Arthur's experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, his journey as a research fellow in Australia, and his transition to the role of Dean. Arthur shared his insights into the unique grant funding system in Australia, the importance of impact in research, and the challenges of balancing administrative responsibilities with scientific pursuits. He also reflected on his personal health struggles, the growth of his university, and the faculty's successful response to the Covid crisis. The conversation also touched upon Arthur's career decisions, his scientific achievements, and the importance of learning from mistakes and self-confidence. Lastly, they discussed the global challenges of healthcare workforce growth, climate change, and emerging psychiatric disorders, as well as the importance of recording lectures and having pre-lesson materials available to students. Translating Discovery Into Clinical Application Arthur and Yamina discussed the importance of translating fundamental discoveries into clinical applications in their research, highlighting the unique opportunities presented by their location and partnerships with other institutions. They stressed the necessity of making their research goals clearer, avoiding replication, and adopting a more assertive approach in grant applications. They also emphasized the significance of fundamental discoveries, the role of biotech, and the need for efficiency and process development in university systems. The conversation highlighted ongoing challenges within universities, including resistance to change and the need to communicate expectations and protect established cultures. Hiring Process, Collaboration, and Education-Focused Initiatives Arthur emphasized the importance of differentiation, impact, and interest in their hiring process and fostering a culture of collaboration. He shared his vision of breaking down barriers and promoting education-focused initiatives, encouraging his team to be innovative and apply their skills to education. Yamina expressed a desire to learn from successful leaders and the importance of recognizing talent and matching it with the needs of a particular project. They also discussed the disruption within the pharmaceutical sector, the importance of workforce development, and the need for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Lastly, they deliberated on involving junior scientists and postdocs in their podcast and the possibility of writing a book about their experiences in academia. Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) GPCR location matters with Dr. Gabriele Kockelkoren About Gabriele Kockelkoren I have a strong background in both physics and molecular biology and, accordingly, I strive in interdisciplinary environments. After completing a cum laude BSc. and MSc. in Nanobiology at the Technical University of Delft in The Netherlands, I pursued a PhD at the University of Copenhagen under the supervision of Prof. Dimitrios Stamou. In my PhD, I studied the nanoscale spatial organization of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) at the plasma membrane of living cells. Importantly, my work revealed heterogeneous spatial patterns of receptor density and activation, that are modulated in a drug-dependent manner. These findings identify nanoscale GPCR spatial organization as an integral element of their activity and signaling. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Alice Ting developing programmable receptors for molecular sensing and controlling cellular behaviour. Gabriele Kockelkoren on the web Stanford University X LinkedIn Google Scholar ORCID ResearchGate Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) The Role of Quantitative Sciences in GPCRs with Dr. Nagarajan Vaidehi About Dr. Nagarajan Vaidehi "Nagarajan Vaidehi, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine (DCQM) at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope in Los Angeles, CA. She is also the Associate Director of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Vaidehi received her Ph.D. in quantum chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology in India, where she was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016. Following her postdoctoral studies on protein dynamics simulation methods at University of Southern California, and at Caltech, she became the director of biomolecular simulations at the Materials and Process Simulation Center, Beckman Institute at Caltech. Dr. Vaidehi joined the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope in 2006 as a Professor and became chair of DCQM in 2018. She has advanced the use of computational methods to meet the challenges of designing therapeutics with lower off target effects. She is an internationally recognized biophysicist for her contributions in developing constrained molecular dynamics simulation methods with emphasis on application to G-protein coupled receptors and drug design." Dr. Nagarajan Vaidehi on the web City of Hope Google Scholar LinkedIn Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Yamina Berchiche About Dr. Yamina Berchiche Dr. Yamina A. Berchiche is the founder of Dr. GPCR, an ecosystem designed to bring together stakeholders interested in using G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) that control virtually everything in the body as drug targets. The mission of Dr. GPCR is to accelerate GPCR drug discovery by sharing the latest research and technology advances in the field and providing exposure to scientists through the Dr. GPCR podcast. Dr. Berchiche obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Montreal in Canada before training at Rockefeller University in New York and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She developed expertise over the past two decades studying structure/function relationships of GPCRs using live-cell bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). Her work focused on chemokine receptors, members of the GPCR family that control cell movement in the body. Dr. Yamina Berchiche on the web Website LinkedIn Facebook Twitter ResearchGate PubMed Google Scholar Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

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<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Josephine (Pina) Cardarelli About Dr. Josephine (Pina) Cardarelli Dr. Pina Cardarelli, CSO for GPCR Therapeutics Inc., based in South Korea, has recently been named President of GPCR Therapeutics, USA, a newly incorporated Biotechnology company in the Bay Area. The company’s mission is to discover and develop highly effective cancer therapeutics by targeting heteromers of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). Burixafor, their most advanced clinical candidate, will be in Phase II clinical trial next year. Additionally, they have a library of target GPCR heteromers for Oncology. Dr. Cardarelli heads the team of talented researchers that will be expanding at the US site. Dr. Cardarelli is a drug development leader with extensive experience driving drug discovery teams in bringing biologics to clinical proof of concepts. She has expertise in cell biology, pharmacology, translational medicine, oncology, immuno-oncology, immunology, and clinical development. Previously, she held the position of Vice President of Cell Biology & Pharmacology, at Bristol-Myers Squibb . She was an integral contributor to two therapeutics that are FDA approved, Yervoy and Opdivo. She was a participant in numerous due diligence (anti-CXCL8 mAb) and has managed external collaborations and alliances. Prior to this, she held the position of Vice President, at Medarex, Inc . While at BMS and Medarex, she led programs from target ID to clinical development that included, CXCL10 (Eldelumab), CXCR4 (Ulocuplumab), CD30, CD19, Fucosyl GM-1, & mesothelin-ADC, Glypican-3-ADC, CD70-ADC. She oversaw early discovery programs IL-23 p19 and IL23 p19/IL-17 bispecifics. At Medarex, she initiated and identified the lead mAb for the type I interferon-alpha receptor project, licensed to AstraZeneca (Saphnelo™ Anifrolumab) that has just received FDA approval for systemic lupus erythematosus. She has extensive experience working with Biologics, and Antibody Drug Conjugates as well as experience in IND fillings, IB updates, and responding to FDA inquiries. She is an inventor on 39 issued U.S. patents including anti-PD-1 patents, 22 EP patents, and greater than 100 global patents centered around therapeutic development. She has also authored forty-six peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Cardarelli received her Ph.D. in Physiology from Albany Medical College. Dr. Josephine (Pina) Cardarelli on the web LinkedIn Company Website Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

Dr. Maria Waldhoer on why endpoint GPCR assays miss most of what ligands do — and what kinetic pharmacological fingerprints reveal instead. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Maria Waldhoer: Pharmacological Fingerprints and the Limits of Bias Dr. Maria Waldhoer, CSO of InterAx Biotech AG, argues that endpoint assays — the field's default way of characterizing GPCR ligands — throw away most of the information a compound actually carries. Her team at InterAx models receptor signaling pathways as systems of time-dependent equations, then runs kinetic assays to refine the models and extract ten to fifteen pharmacological parameters from what would otherwise be three endpoint numbers. The approach sits in deliberate tension with the prevailing vocabulary of bias factors and functional selectivity, and with the common dismissal of HEK293-based work as too artificial to matter. Her answer to that dismissal is partly methodological and partly personal: the proudest moment of her scientific life was designing a compound in a HEK cell from a hypothesis, putting it in an animal, and watching the effect come back exactly as predicted. The conversation traces her path from neurobiology in Salzburg through academic labs in Vienna, Copenhagen, and Graz, to six and a half years at Novo Nordisk, and into biotech at InterAx — where the next challenge is using functional fingerprints to design ligands, not just describe them. About the Guest Dr. Maria Waldhoer is Chief Scientific Officer at InterAx Biotech AG in Switzerland. Her training began in zoology and neurobiology in Salzburg, followed by a PhD on GPCRs in Michael Freissmuth's lab in Vienna and postdoctoral work with Thue Schwartz in Copenhagen and Jennifer Whistler in San Francisco. After running her own academic group in Graz, she spent six and a half years at Novo Nordisk in early drug discovery, focused on incretin receptors. She has been at InterAx since 2017, where she leads the development of a computational systems biology and AI platform that produces time-resolved pharmacological fingerprints of GPCR ligands. Scientific Themes of the Conversation Kinetic versus endpoint characterization of GPCR ligands Systems biology modeling of receptor signaling pathways Pharmacological fingerprints as multi-parameter compound descriptors Ligand residence time as a driver of drug action AI combined with functional, not only structural, data The academic-to-Big-Pharma-to-biotech trajectory Key Insights from the Conversation Endpoint assays collapse the ligand's signature. Standard assay kits that read cAMP at thirty minutes or arrestin recruitment at ten collapse time-resolved signaling into a single number. Dr. Waldhoer argues that most of what distinguishes one compound from another lives in the shape of the kinetics, not the endpoint value. Model first, pipette second. InterAx treats GPCR pharmacology the way engineers treat aircraft design: build the mathematical model of the signaling pathways first, then use controlled kinetic assays as the "wind tunnel" that refines the model. Inverting the usual order changes what the experiment can be asked to do. Three inputs can yield fifteen outputs. With a well-constructed computational model and a small set of kinetic assays, one compound on one receptor can be described by ten to fifteen pharmacological parameters — internalization rates, recycling and degradation rates, G protein affinity for the ligand-receptor complex, and more — rather than a single EC50 or a single bias number. The HEK293 cell earned its keep. Her most formative scientific moment was designing a compound in HEK293 cells from a hypothesis at Novo Nordisk, putting it in an animal, and watching the effect come back exactly as predicted. The "artificial system" critique misses what those systems do for people who know how to ask the right questions of them. Bias factor is a start, not an answer. Functional selectivity has been in the vocabulary since her PhD years in Vienna. Picking a single time point for a single pathway and computing a bias factor captures far less than looking at how several pathways evolve over time — especially for compounds with unusual kinetics. The next challenge is multi-receptor, multi-disease complexity. With comorbidities and aging populations driving drug discovery, the one-receptor-one-drug frame is increasingly inadequate. The computational tools that now describe single receptors will need to extend to how multiple receptors in the same cell, in a diseased tissue, at a particular age, interact. Young founders should not build alone. The hardest-won lesson of her biotech years: great science does not rescue a company from inexperienced management. Scientists starting companies need experienced operators around them, and the honesty to know when to bring them in — a theme she returns to as her farewell message. Episode Timeline Timestamps were generated using AI for readability. 00:00 — Opening: end-of-2020 wrap-up, January break, announcements 01:28 — Meet Dr. Maria Waldhoer, CSO of InterAx Biotech 02:19 — From zoology to GPCRs: fate, not choice 06:48 — Academia to Big Pharma: speed, scale, and decisions from above 09:58 — InterAx's pivot from arrestin biosensors to kinetic systems biology 14:31 — Why endpoint numbers miss what a ligand is really doing 16:40 — AI plus "real intelligence": functional data in drug design 21:48 — Comorbidities, aging, and the multi-receptor frontier 24:07 — "What endogenous level would you like me to mimic?" 25:26 — The HEK293 experiment that predicted the animal 31:21 — Tools for the next decade: biosensors, tissues, high-throughput structure 38:43 — Career advice for scientists eyeing industry or biotech 42:35 — On starting a GPCR company: why not too early 57:30 — Aha moments, including the EU grant pitch in Brussels 01:01:53 — "You're only as good as the other people you're with" Selected Quotes "A long way through the bright and the dark side of science." "What endogenous level would you like me to mimic?" "We combine AI with RI — with real intelligence." "You're only as good as the other people you're with." About this episode Dr. Maria Waldhoer is originally from Austria. She earned her M.Sc. in Zoology and Neurobiology before completing a Ph.D. in Biology and Pharmacology at the University of Vienna. GPCRs led Maria to Thue W. Schwartz’s lab in Copenhagen where she completed her postdoctoral training. After working in the US and at the University in Graz in Austria, Maria worked several years at Novo Nordisk before joining InterAx Biotech in Switzerland as their Chief Scientific Officer. Even though Maria stumbled upon the GPCR field, her 20 years in both academia and in the industry working on GPCRs make her a strong and dedicated scientific leader. Dr. Maria Waldhoer on the web LinkedIn InterAx Biotech Pubmed Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Gáspár Pándy-Szekeres About Gáspár Pándy-Szekeres " After a BSc in biology and a MSc in bioinformatics, I have been working in David Gloriam's group as a bioinformatician. My initial focus was on creating an automated chimeric homology modeling pipeline for GPCRs and since have branched out to multiple areas of GPCR research such as sequence alignments, generic numbering systems, structure data, G protein and arrestin coupling and more. As a developer, and more recently the lead developer of GPCRdb my day-to-day work centers around the maintenance and resource/tool development of GPCRdb and its sister databases. I am also affiliated with György Keserű's group at the RCNS in Hungary. I lived in Denmark, Poland, now I live in Hungary. I am married, I have two daughters. In my free time I like to play the guitar, sing and play board games. " Gáspár Pándy-Szekeres on the web LinkedIn University of Copenhagen ResearchGate Twitter Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Sudha Shenoy About Dr. Sudha Shenoy Dr. Sudha Shenoy is currently an Associate Professor in Medicine & Cell Biology in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Duke University Medical Center. She received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University and completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz (Nobel Laureate, 2012) at Duke University. Dr. Shenoy’s postdoctoral research discovered that ubiquitination of mammalian G protein-coupled receptors is a tag for lysosomal degradation, whereas ubiquitination of the adaptor protein, β-arrestin, is a tag for receptor internalization and formation of signaling endosomes. Her laboratory has continued to work on identifying the molecular mechanisms that ascribe ubiquitin code on GPCRs and β-arrestins. Current efforts aim to understand the regulation of GPCR and beta-arrestin signaling in the heart and vascular endothelium by the deubiquitinating enzymes USP20 and USP33. Dr. Sudha Shenoy on the web Duke University Personal Reflections and Words of Wisdom: Story From Dr. Sudha Shenoy LinkedIn Pubmed Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

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<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Silvia Sposini About Dr. Silvia Sposini " I'm originally from Rome, Italy, where I studied Biological Sciences as a BSc student. I moved to London as a short experience (3 months) during my MSc but I ended up staying for a full year and and a PhD! During my time in London I investigated regulatory mechanisms of GPCR action, namely dimerization and membrane trafficking, in Dr Aylin Hanyaloglu 's lab at Imperial College London. In 2018 I got married and moved to France, to join the Interdisciplinary Institute for Neurosciences in Bordeaux. Still working on GPCR trafficking but this time in neurons. In 2021 I became mum of a gorgeous baby girl, Elena. I am currently funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from Wellcome Trust, working on a collaborative project (Dr Hanyaloglu's lab at ICL + Dr Perrais' lab at IINS) focused on understanding the interplay between GPCR signalling and trafficking in neurons using microscopy and proteomics based techniques. " Dr. Silvia Sposini on the web Bordeaux Neurocampus LinkedIn ResearchGate X (Twitter) Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Roger Sunahara About Dr. Roger Sunahara Professor Sunahara received his graduate training with Dr. Philip Seeman in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. He later joined the laboratory of eminent biochemical pharmacologist, Dr. Alfred G. Gilman, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School as a post-doctoral fellow. His training has provided a strong foundation and appreciation for the applications of pharmacology, biochemistry and structural biology to delineate mechanisms of action. Professor Sunahara started his independent research career in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School, where he climbed the academic ladder. In 2015 Professor Sunahara moved his laboratory to the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California in San Diego. His main area of research focuses on the structural and pharmacological bases for hormone-mediated activation of G proteins by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The Sunahara lab utilizes biochemical, biophysical and pharmacological methodologies to study GPCR-G protein interactions. These approaches were invaluable to resolve the crystal structure of the beta2-adrenergic receptor (beta2AR)-G protein complex, team effort with long time collaborator Brian Kobilka . The structure was first snapshot of the agonist- and G protein-bound GPCR, providing valuable models for agonist-mediated activation of G proteins. We continue to utilize these data to better understand the basis for receptor-G protein specificity and agonist efficacy. Our mission is to understand the mechanism and structural bases for ligand binding and efficacy to help optimize the design and engineering of more efficacious therapeutics. This is an important perspective in the pursuit of receptor subtype-specific ligands, a major aspect to achieve safer, on-target therapeutics. One example of our recent work surrounds a structure-based effort to develop ligands that specifically target the beta2AR above all other adrenergic receptor isoforms. Our goal is to develop safer beta2AR-selective ligands for the treatment of asthma and acute rescue therapy for anaphylaxis. We also study non-canonical sites, those outside of the native hormone, or orthosteric, binding sites. We have identified several GPCR ligands that allosterically modulate orthosteric ligand binding and target sites that are often located in regions that display higher sequence variability among receptor subtypes. Again, our intention is to target specific receptor subtypes. The structural work on the GPCR-G protein complexes have also revealed some unprecedented conformational changes in G protein structure. Some of these changes are associated with G protein activation while the functional consequences of other structural changes remain elusive. More recently we have have been heavily engaged in studies to address the functional role of these dramatic conformational changes and the relationship to disease. Some of these studies resolved a major question regarding the signaling differences in G protein splice forms, specifically the short and long forms of the stimulatory G protein, Galpha-s(s) and Galpha-s(l), respectively. We demonstrated that Galpha-s(l), but not Galpha-s(s), regulates extracellularly regulated kinases (ERK), and that this long isoform is tied to a devastating blood disorder, myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). We speculate that these aberrations in Galpha-s(l), specifically, may be involved in other pathologies such as cancer. The Sunahara lab has also been developing protein-based therapeutics using structure-guided design and validation. A notable therapeutic is an enzyme that hydrolyzes cocaine. Through structural and computational approaches the Sunahara lab and collaborators developed a thermostable form of the enzyme that has recently progressed through Phase II clinical trials as an antidote for cocaine overdose. The laboratory continues to engineer the enzyme to optimize its potential as a treatment for cocaine abuse, a debilitating disease that would require long-term and sustained therapeutic actions. Dr. Roger Sunahara on the web UCSD Profile Google Scholar ResearchGate LinkedIn Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Scott Struthers R. Scott Struthers, Ph.D., is our co-founder and has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since December 2008. Prior to Crinetics, he was senior director and head of endocrinology and metabolism at Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., from 1998 to 2008. At Neurocrine, he initiated and led the effort to discover and develop orally active, nonpeptide GnRH antagonists, including elagolix. Prior to Neurocrine, from 1995 to 1998, he co-founded ScienceMedia Inc. to develop eLearning solutions for the life sciences and higher education markets. Between 1992 to 1995 he led contract research efforts at Biosym Technologies to develop and apply computational tools for drug discovery. In 2021, Dr. Struthers co-founded and serves as board chair at Radionetics Oncology, a pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel radiotherapeutics for oncology indications. In addition, he is a member of the board of directors of the San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange, a nonprofit organization that provides resources for early-stage start-ups, which he co-founded in [2009.] R. Scott Struthers on the web LinkedIn Google Scholar Crinetics Radionetics Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Kenneth A. Jacobson About Dr. Kenneth A. Jacobson Kenneth A. Jacobson received his BA in Liberal Arts from Reed College in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego in 1981. He completed postdoctoral training at the Weizmann Institute. In 1983, he joined the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, MD. He is currently the Senior Investigator and Chief of the Molecular Recognition Section, Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry. He adapts interdisciplinary approaches (synthesis, modeling, pharmacology) to study G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and purinergic signaling and now has four compounds in clinical trials. He has published more than 800 scientific publications, with an H-index of 115. His numerous awards include: 2008 Sato Award; 2009 Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame (American Chemical Soc.); 2014 Goodman and Gilman Award; 2017 Tu Youyou Award; 2017 Smissman Award; 2023 Hershberg Award. Dr. Kenneth A. Jacobson on the web NIDDK Web of Science Google Scholar LinkedIn Twitter Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu About Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu has been a Principal Investigator at Imperial College London since 2007. She received her BSc in Human Biology from King’s College London in 1997, and while her Ph.D. commenced at the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Centre, Edinburgh, a move to Perth, Australia resulted in her Ph.D. in Molecular Endocrinology being awarded in 2002 with Distinction from the University of Western Australia. Dr. Hanyaloglu undertook her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco with Professor Mark von Zastrow where she identified novel core cellular machinery critical for G protein-coupled receptor trafficking and signaling. Her research focuses on understanding the fundamental cell biological mechanisms regulating GPCR activity, including spatial control of GPCR signaling and receptor crosstalk, and applying these mechanisms for distinct GPCRs in diverse physiological and pathophysiological systems, with particular focus on women's health, pregnancy, and nutrient sensing in the gut. Her work is currently funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Diabetes UK, Wellcome Trust, and the Medical Research Council. Dr. Aylin Hanyaloglu on the web LinkedIn Researchgate Twitter Imperial College London Elsevier Loop Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Paul J. Gasser About Dr. Paul J. Gasser " I received my BS and MS in Zoology & Physiology at the University of Wyoming, where I studied signaling processes involved in light-induced regulation of melatonin synthesis in the rainbow trout pineal organ, a directly photosensitive endocrine organ. I received my PhD in Biology at Arizona State University, where I worked in the lab of Miles Orchinik, studying cellular mechanisms underlying non-genomic actions of corticosteroid hormones. My postdoctoral work, conducted at the University of Bristol, UK, in Christopher Lowry's lab, examined the role of organic cation transporter 3 (OCT3) in the regulation of monoamine signaling in the brain. I joined the faculty of Biomedical Sciences at Marquette in 2007. I teach undergraduate Biochemistry and a variety of graduate neuroscience courses. Research in my lab is currently focused on understanding the signal transduction pathways activated by beta-adrenergic receptors localized to the inner nuclear membrane and their role in the regulation of gene expression." Dr. Paul J. Gasser on the web Gasser Lab Marquette University Google Scholar ResearchGate LinkedIn Twitter Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Daniel Wacker About Dr. Daniel Wacker I obtained my B.Sc. degree from the University of Munich performing work in the lab of Dr. Roland Beckmann with a brief stay at Cambridge University, UK, working in the lab of the late Dr. Kiyoshi Nagai . I then obtained an M.Sc. at the University in Munich working e.g. in the lab of Patrick Cramer . I next moved to Rockefeller University in NYC to work in the lab of the late Dr. Guenter Blobel , before starting my Ph.D. in 2009 at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. There I obtained my Ph.D. in the lab of Dr. Ray Stevens in 2013 solving several GPCR crystal structures, including that of the first serotonin receptor. I then moved to UNC at Chapel Hill to do postdoctoral work in the lab of Dr. Bryan Roth where I established GPCR structural biology and learned the ins and outs of molecular pharmacology and in vitro drug discovery. In 2018 I started my own lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC, where I have been working on structure-function and drug discovery of GPCRs and transporters. Dr. Daniel Wacker on the web Website LinkedIn Twitter PubMed Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. GPCR Board About Dr. Yamina Berchiche "Dr. Yamina A. Berchiche is the founder of Dr. GPCR, an ecosystem designed to bring together stakeholders interested in using G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) that control virtually everything in the body as drug targets. The mission of Dr. GPCR is to accelerate GPCR drug discovery by sharing the latest research and technology advances in the field and providing exposure to scientists through the Dr. GPCR podcast. Dr. Berchiche obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Montreal in Canada before training at Rockefeller University in New York and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She developed expertise over the past two decades studying structure/function relationships of GPCRs using live-cell bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). Her work focused on chemokine receptors, members of the GPCR family that control cell movement in the body." Dr. Yamina Berchiche on the web Website LinkedIn Facebook Twitter ResearchGate PubMed Google Scholar Dr. GPCR About Dr. Maria Waldhoer "I am a pharmacologist with a ~30 years background in academia and industry, working both in big pharma and biotech settings. My experience in basic research at several universities worldwide and early R&D at Novo Nordisk A/S allowed me to shape a swiss start-up company from a scientifc idea to a thriving Biotech focusing on Systems Biology & AI to accelerate the quest for novel & safer drugs on GPCRs. After a well needed break from the grind, I am now a scientific/business consultant for clients both in Academia and in the Life sciences and Healthcare industry. I am a recent convert and strong advocate for integrating mindfulness and mental wellbeing into demanding work routines." Dr. Maria Waldhoer on the web LinkedIn T witter Pubmed Dr. GPCR About Dr. JoAnn Trejo "Dr. JoAnn Trejo earned her Ph.D. at UC San Diego. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Francisco under the guidance of Professor Shaun Coughlin where she worked on the newly discovered protease-activated GPCRs. Dr. Trejo joined the faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina in 2000 and then moved to UC San Diego School Medicine, Department of Pharmacology in 2008, where she quickly rose through the ranks to tenured professor in 2012. In 2014, she was appointed Vice-Chair of the Department of Pharmacology. The long-term goal of Dr. Trejo’s research program is to gain a thorough and mechanistic understanding of processes that control cell signaling by protease-activated receptors (PARs) and the impact on vascular inflammation and cancer progression. PARs are GPCRs that are activated through an atypical irreversible proteolytic mechanism. The precise control of PAR signaling is critical for proper temporal and spatial dynamics of signaling and appropriate cellular responses. Discovering new aspects of PAR signaling is important for increasing the fundamental knowledge of GPCR biology and for the identification of drug targets and future drug development. Dr. Trejo’s research has focused on PAR1, which has important functions in hemostasis, thrombosis, inflammation, and cancer and is an important drug target. She has made numerous important discoveries related to the mechanisms that control PAR1 signaling and closely related family members and published extensively on this topic. Dr. Trejo has been continuously funded by the NIH for >20 years and was a recipient of the prestigious American Heart Association Established Investigator Award. Her laboratory is the recognized expert on protease-activated receptors, particularly PAR1, and over the years she has discovered novel aspects of GPCR biology, acquired critical expertise, and rigorous approaches to examine PAR1 function using human cultured cells and mouse models. Dr. Trejo has presented her studies at 52 national/international meetings and 66 academic seminars across the U.S." Dr. JoAnn Trejo on the web UC San Diego Trejo Lab Wikipedia LinkedIn Google Scholar Orcid Twitter UC San Diego School of Medicine Researchgate Dr. GPCR About Anne Marie Quinn "Anne Marie Quinn has a long and varied work experience in the biocomputing and bioinformatics fields. From 1987 to 1994, they were the Director of Biocomputing at The Salk Institute, where they managed institute-wide network and biocomputing services, served on the Steering Committee of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and provided consultation for genetic sequence analysis, molecular modeling and database searching. In 1994, they became a Bioinformatics Scientist at CuraGen Corporation. From 1995 to 2002, they worked at Yale University School of Medicine as the Bioinformatics Core Facility Manager, where they managed a technical support team providing scientific data analysis and database development services, contributed analytic support resulting in authorship of numerous scientific publications and new funding, and developed and co-taught a new course in bioinformatics for graduate students. From 2002 to 2006, they were a Senior Application Scientist at Accelrys, where they were the technical point of contact for customers assessing features of software products for drug discovery and genomic analysis, delivered technical presentations and software demonstrations to prospective customers worldwide, and developed web-based case notes, marketing seminars and product literature for scientific software. Finally, since 2006, they have been the Chief Executive Officer at Montana Molecular, LLC. Anne Marie Quinn attended Yale University from 1998 to 2000, where they earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. Prior to that, they obtained a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from California State University, Long Beach in 1982." Anne Marie Quinn on the web Google Scholar The Org LinkedIn Twitter Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

Career coach Lauren Solano on the skills PhDs undersell, the careers they don't know exist, and the introspection exercise that maps functions to scientific training. << Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Lauren Solano: Mapping Careers Beyond the Bench This episode steps outside the usual GPCR research conversation to examine the career architecture around it. Lauren Solano, CEO and co-founder of Propel Careers, has spent more than a decade coaching PhDs and postdocs and recruiting for biotech and life sciences companies — a vantage point that makes her uncommonly clear about the gap between how scientists describe themselves and how the market reads them. The discussion explores how to translate scientific training into career options that are often invisible to bench scientists, ranging from medical science liaison and clinical research roles to business development, scientific communications, venture capital, and consulting. Solano unpacks the specific transferable skills PhDs consistently undersell — collaboration, leadership, proactive ownership, communicating across technical audiences — and introduces concrete tools for self-assessment and exploration, including the "loved it, loathed it" exercise and a permission-granted approach to informational interviewing. For Solano, the stakes are personal: she didn't know the career she now has was even possible in 2008, which is precisely why she maps the option space for the scientists she coaches today. About the Guest Lauren Solano is CEO and co-founder of Propel Careers, a Boston-based firm that coaches scientists and recruits for biotech and life sciences companies. She trained as a scientist and spent her first decade in preclinical and early clinical drug discovery before pursuing an MBA in 2007 and co-founding Propel in 2009. Her practice centers on helping PhDs and postdocs translate technical training into career paths they often don't realize are open to them. Each year she delivers roughly a hundred talks at universities and research institutions on resumes, negotiation, informational interviewing, and the mechanics of biotech hiring. Scientific Themes of the Conversation The gap between scientific training and the career vocabulary scientists need Transferable skills in the PhD toolkit — and why they go unlisted Informational interviewing as a research method for career planning The limits and real signals of "company culture" in biotech COVID-era shifts in scientist hiring and career reflection Title-function mismatches in life sciences job descriptions Key Insights from the Conversation 1. The "loved it, loathed it" exercise as a career compass Over any given week, note which tasks you enjoyed and which you dreaded. Separate that list from what you're good at — the overlap reveals which career functions, not titles, are worth exploring next. 2. Function over title Job titles in biotech are often creative and inconsistent — a medical science liaison might be called a "clinical information specialist." Scientists navigating a career change are better served mapping careers by tasks and functions first, and treating titles as secondary metadata. 3. PhDs consistently undersell their transferable skills After thousands of conversations with scientists, Solano has found that collaboration, leadership, proactive ownership, and translating technical content across audiences are not universal traits. PhDs tend to have them in unusual concentration — and tend to leave them off their resumes because they assume everyone else has them too. 4. Informational interviews are already permitted Graduate students and postdocs often feel uneasy reaching out to people in other careers, as if the exploration hasn't been earned. Solano reframes this directly: because training ends, career exploration is required, and most people will give fifteen minutes if asked well. 5. "Company culture" is meaningless until you can point at behaviors Every company claims a strong culture. What matters is whether office layout, mentorship practices, and daily behaviors support the claim. The sharper question is what the company does , not what it says. 6. Safety at work is a concrete culture signal Would an employee feel comfortable telling a manager their child is sick, or would they invent another reason? Whether people feel safe at work is a harder measure of culture than any mission statement. 7. Post-pandemic career decisions are about alignment, not just advancement Solano observes that many scientists are using the moment to ask whether their current work matches who they are — not to chase the next rung, but to reset toward impact. Episode Timeline 00:00 Intro and Dr. GPCR Summit preview 01:30 Meet Lauren Solano and Propel Careers 03:11 The path from bench science to career coaching 07:56 Loved it, loathed it — the introspection exercise 10:29 Career options PhDs rarely consider 11:49 Transferable skills scientists undervalue 14:16 The informational interview — permission granted 23:57 The COVID shift in biotech hiring 26:14 Assessing real company culture 31:34 Master resumes and the title trap Timestamps were generated using AI for readability. Selected Quotes "If you had asked me in 2008 if I would be a recruiter slash career coach, I didn't even know that was possible because it hadn't even occurred to me that that is something that would have been a fit." "None of you should be ever worried or afraid or feel awkward reaching out to people for informational interviews because you are supposed to think about your future and learn about different things." "I can tell you in speaking with thousands of PhDs, not everyone is collaborative. Not everyone likes to do novel areas of research. Not everyone is amazing at communicating both to technical audiences and non-technical audiences. So don't undersell your experiences." "Life is frail, right? So if we're not making a difference, if we're not impacting something, why are we doing it?" About this episode In this special Dr. GPCR podcast episode, we sat down to chat with Lauren Celano to talk about career options for Ph.D.’s. Working in a lab allows scientists to gain amazing hard and soft skills, which opens the doors to several great careers that many have not even considered, yet. Lauren has a science background and is passionate about helping talented scientists find their dream position. She is also a speaker, connector, recruiter, and coach. Lauren Celano on the web LinkedIn Propel Careers Email: Lauren@propelcareers.com Dr. GPCR Ecosystem Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>

Find answers to all your questions about the Dr. GPCR Ecosystem: courses, podcasts, memberships, events, and more. Frequently asked questions Webinar University Vault Premium Pricing GPCR Masterclass YC-Biotech YC-VC YC-CRO Terrys Corner Media Partner General University Dr.GPCR Podcast What are GPCR webinars? GPCR webinars are live online scientific sessions focused on G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) biology, pharmacology, signaling, and drug discovery. Each session explores mechanistic models, translational challenges, and real-world therapeutic implications. These webinars are designed for scientists who want deep, data-driven discussion rather than surface-level overviews. Who should attend these GPCR pharmacology webinars? Are these GPCR webinars suitable for industry scientists? How are these different from academic seminars or conferences? Are the webinars live or pre-recorded? Do I need prior knowledge of GPCR pharmacology? What topics are typically covered in GPCR webinars? Are these GPCR webinars free? Will attending help with continuing education or professional development? How often are new GPCR webinars added? Where can I find advanced GPCR training online?

<< Back to podcast list Strategic Partner(s) Dr. Richard Premont About Dr. Richard Premont "Dr. Premont obtained his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in 1985, and M.Ph . and Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Pharmacology) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine (City University of New York) in 1990 and 1992, working with Ravi Iyengar on regulation/desensitization of the liver glucagon receptor and glucagon-stimulated adenylyl cyclase system. In 1992, he won a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowship to support his post-doctoral work with Robert Lefkowitz and Marc Caron at Duke University. His initial project to identify and clone taste receptors was unsuccessful, but led to the identification of GRK5 and continued focus on GRKs (particularly GRKs 4,5,6) and arrestins as GPCR regulators and as mediators of distinct signaling pathways through partners including GIT1. In 1999, obtained an independent faculty position at Duke in Gastroenterology, where he remained until 2018 studying GPCRs and their signaling pathways in the liver and in liver disease. In 2018, he moved to Harrington Discovery Institute and Case Western Reserve University, where he studies GPCR regulation by S-nitrosylation. My research focus is on understanding how distinct cellular signaling pathways interact and are coordinated to produce integrated physiological responses, and how dysregulation of this coordination results in pathophysiology. For this, we have worked in three main areas: the regulation of G protein-coupled receptor signaling particularly by the G protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK) – beta-arrestin system, the coordination of heterotrimeric G protein, small GTP-binding protein and protein kinase pathways by GIT/PIX scaffolding complexes during cellular signaling, and characterizing the role of protein S-nitrosylation as a signaling post-translational modification in mediating and regulating cellular signaling pathways, particularly in conjunction with better characterized signaling systems. In our work, we utilize methods including structural biology and proteomics, molecular biology and biochemical enzymology, primary and model cell culture, and transgenic, knockout, knock-in and conditional models of mouse physiology and behavior." Dr. Richard Premont on the web Google Scholar LinkedIn Dr. GPCR Unlock the Full Dr. GPCR Learning Ecosystem ✔ Full Masterclass library ✔ Terry's Pharmacology Corner ✔ Advanced GPCR courses ✔ Scientific discussions → Become Premium Upcoming Live Expert Sessions ➚ 🔒Explore the Full Masterclass ➚ Enjoying the Dr. GPCR Podcast? Leave a Review. Leave a quick review to help more scientists find the show—and help us keep improving every episode. It takes <60 seconds and makes a big difference. ★ Review on Apple Podcasts ★ Rate on Spotify ✉️ Send feedback to the team Thanks for listening to this podcast episode Follow us on your favorite Podcast Player << Previous Podcast Episode Next Podcast Episode >>