Awarded in 2025
Home Department: Biophysics, Medicine
Faculty Advisors: Karl Deisseroth (Bioengineering and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences), Christopher Barnes (Biology), and Ron Dror (Computer Science)

Research Title: Structure-Guided Optimization of Channelrhodopsin Function with Cryo-Electron Microscopy and Molecular Dynamics Simulations

More than 20% of adults in the U.S. live with mental illnesses. Understanding how cell-to-cell signaling in the brain affects mental illnesses is essential to developing better treatments. To that end, neuroscientists have adapted proteins called “channelrhodopsins” as tools to control and study cell-to-cell signaling in the brain. Joseph’s project will combine high-resolution microscopy with computational simulations of protein motion to understand how channelrhodopsins function on an atomic level. This will enable further engineering and improvement of channelrhodopsins as tools that can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the brain and develop better treatments for mental illnesses.