{"id":3546,"date":"2021-10-27T11:06:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T16:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/?p=3546"},"modified":"2021-10-27T11:06:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T16:06:15","slug":"csb-spotlight-nakagawa-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/2021\/10\/27\/csb-spotlight-nakagawa-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"CSB Spotlight: Nakagawa Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Teru Nakagawa<\/a>, professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, serves as the scientific director for the CSB Cryo-EM facility<\/a>, but he’s also very involved in other programs and centers, including the Molecular Biophysics Training Program<\/a>, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences<\/a> and the Vanderbilt Brain Institute<\/a>. He also uses a diverse range of techniques to address scientific questions that interest him. Find out more about Dr. Nakagawa and his lab.<\/p>\n

What projects does your lab currently work on?<\/em> Molecular mechanism of synaptic plasticity, with a focus on structure and function of glutamate receptors<\/p>\n

What are the primary tools and techniques you use to answer these questions?<\/em> Cryo-EM and electrophysiology are the primary tools, but we actively use anything that is within our reach; Cryo-EM, electrophysiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, mouse genetic models, computation and cell biology.<\/p>\n

What was your path to this position? What is your favorite part of being a PI?<\/em> I was the first to visualize the brain glutamate receptors using single particle EM at a resolution of ~30\u00c5, using a technique called cryo-negative staining back in 2005 when I was a postdoc. I kept studying the glutamate receptors. The cryo-EM technologies have advanced a lot since then and these days my lab is looking at these receptors at near atomic resolution. I continue to be very interested in making new discoveries about these receptors in the context of brain function. New interesting questions are constantly emerging, and it is an exciting field!<\/p>\n

What are some fun lab activities you like to do?<\/em> Skiing and beer<\/p>\n

What do you think is the key to running a successful group?<\/em> It\u2019s not easy. Each member needs to enjoy and be motivated in doing the science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teru Nakagawa, professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, serves as the scientific director for the CSB Cryo-EM facility, but he’s also very involved in other programs and centers, including the Molecular Biophysics Training Program, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences and the ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½¹ÙÍø Brain Institute. He also uses a diverse range of techniques to address…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3547,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions\/3547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}