Gouaux Lab: Members
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Shanshuang Chen email
Postdoc
Shanshuang received a BA degree from Zhejiang University, China. In 2008, he started his graduate studies under the supervision of Dr. Jue Chen in Purdue University, Indiana, with a research focus on structural and functional investigation of carbon catabolite repression, in particular the inhibition of E. coli maltose transporter by a central regulatory protein known as EIIAGlc. After receiving his PhD in 2013, he continued as a postdoc for one year in the same lab. In 2014, he relocated with the Chen lab to the Rockefeller University, New York, and left shortly afterwards to join the Gouaux Lab. His current research aims to understand the working mechanisms of ionotropic neurotransmitter receptors using a combination of structural and functional approaches.
Sarah Clark email
Postdoc
Sarah received a BS degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Davis in 2011. She then completed an MS degree in Systems Engineering at George Washington University while working at a startup pharmaceutical company in Maryland that focused on the development of therapeutic antibodies. Sarah joined the lab of Dr. Elisar Barbar at Oregon State University in 2013. In her doctoral research, she explored the structure and dynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins using NMR spectroscopy. After receiving her PhD, Sarah joined the Gouaux lab in March 2018 to study the structure and function of transmembrane proteins.
Jonathan Coleman email
Postdoc
Jonathan studied Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada earning a BS degree in 2007. As an undergraduate student, he explored the mechanism of protein secretion through the Sec translocon. Jonathan earned his PhD in 2013 at UBC as a student in the lab of Dr. Robert Molday investigating the membrane biology of photoreceptors. His thesis examined an aminophospholipid transporting P4-ATPase and provided valuable insights into the transport mechanism and function in neuronal biology. Jonathan joined Eric Gouaux’s lab in early 2013 and is interested in the structure and pharmacology of neurotransmitter transporters.
Johannes Elferich emailPostdoc
Johannes received a BA degree in Molecular Biotechnology from the Technical University Munich, Germany in 2010. He then joined the lab of Dr. Ujwal Shinde at OHSU. In his doctoral work he investigated the effect of pH on activation of proprotein convertases using computational and biophysical techniques. After receiving his PhD in 2015 he joined the Gouaux lab to study the structure and function of transmembrane proteins.
Jingpeng Ge email
Postdoc
Jingpeng received his BS degree in chemistry and biology from Jilin University, China in 2010. He then joined Dr. Maojun Yang’s laboratory at Tsinghua University, where he studied the structure and mechanism of mammalian mechanosensitive channel Piezo1 using both cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography. After receiving his PhD degree, Jingpeng joined the Gouaux lab in February 2016 to investigate the structure and function of transmembrane proteins.
April Goehring email
Senior Research Associate
April Goehring earned a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1993, and as an undergraduate participated in projects to characterize the regulation of MAP kinase kinase. In her graduate research, April’s work focused on the identification and characterization of proteins in yeast involved in polarized cell growth. She was granted a PhD in Biochemistry in 2002 from the University of Oregon. Her postdoctoral training was carried out at the Vollum Institute where she studied anchored PKA signal transduction. Since joining the Gouaux lab in 2008, she has spent her time studying the molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter transporters and receptors.
Farzad Jalali-Yazdi email
Postdoc
Farzad received his BS degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biology from MIT. At MIT, he worked with Professors Langer and Cima to develop implantable devices to monitor hCG concentrations in cancer patients. After MIT, Farzad worked for two years as a scientist and engineer at BioScale, Inc., a biotechnology startup company in Cambridge, developing accurate and sensitive assays on a new MEMS platform. He received his PhD in 2015 from USC, working to develop and characterize peptide ligands using mRNA display. His research in Professor Roberts' laboratory focused on developing a peptide-targeted peptide ligand capable of stopping HCV virus particle production in human liver cells, as well as using mRNA display and NextGen sequencing to characterize the binding kinetics for thousands of ligands simultaneously. He joined the Gouaux lab in fall of 2016 to study the structural mechanisms of neurotransmitter receptor functions by cryo-electron microscopy.
Vikas Navratna email
Postdoc
Vikas graduated from Osmania University, India, with a bachelor's degree in Biotechnology in 2005 and master's degree in Biochemistry in 2007. He then joined the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India, for a PhD program in Structural Biology and Biochemistry. His research work in Prof. B. Gopal's laboratory comprised structural and biochemical characterization of proteins involved in peptidoglycan synthesis, antibiotic resistance and essential amino acid metabolism in gram-positive bacteria. He received his PhD in 2014 and continued working at IISc as a Research Associate. He studied RNA degradosome machinery of gram-positive bacteria briefly, before joining the Gouaux laboratory in February of 2015 to research the structural and mechanistic aspects of neurotransmitter transporters.
Prashant Rao email
Graduate Student
Prashant received his B.S. degree in Bioengineering from the University of Maryland in 2011. He went on to join the lab of Dr. Sriram Subramaniam at the National Institutes of Health, focusing primarily on optimization of sample preparation and cryo-electron microscopy techniques. Prashant joined the Gouaux lab in the summer of 2018 to investigate the structural and functional properties of neurotransmitter receptors.
Natalie Sheldon email
Lab Manager
Natalie was born and raised in Oregon and earned a BS in Biology from Hope College in Holland, MI. While earning her degree she worked on the transporter system xc- in Leah Chase’s lab. After graduation in 2006 she joined the Gouaux lab, and her primary role has been to do support work for the entire lab. Natalie also does the purchasing for the lab and tries her hardest to maintain some organization and cleanliness around the lab.
Chang Sun email
Postdoc
Chang received his BS in Pharmacy from Fudan University, China, in 2010. He then started his graduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Illinois, under the supervision of Profs. Colin Wraight and Robert Gennis. Chang's research focused on characterizations of bioenergetic enzymes with magnetic resonance spectroscopy and time-resolved optical spectroscopy. After receiving his PhD in May 2016, he remained at the University of Illinois to work on a joint project with Profs. Gennis and Emad Tajkhorshid, and Prof. John Rubinstein from SickKids, Canada. Together, they solved a new respiratory protein structure with the styrene-maleic acid copolymer. Chang joined the Gouaux Lab in November 2018 to study the molecular mechanism of ligand-gated ion-channel by cryo-electron microscopy.
Dongxue Yang email
Postdoc
Dongxue received her BS degree in Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011. She then joined the lab of Professor Ruiming Xu in the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, to study the structure of a nucleosome-related complex. After earning her PhD, Dongxue joined the Gouaux lab in September of 2016 and is currently investigating the structure and function of neurotransmitter transporters.
Nate Yoder email
Graduate Student
Nate received bachelor's degrees in Physiology and Chemistry from Michigan State University in 2011. While working as a research technician in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Shepherd, Nate studied the structure of Arc/Arg3.1, a synaptic protein involved in experience-dependent AMPA receptor trafficking. Now a graduate student at OHSU, Nate is interested in the molecular mechanisms that govern ion channel function and synaptic regulation at central nervous system synapses. He joined the Gouaux Lab in 2015 to study the structure and function of acid sensing ion channels using a combination of x-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and electrophysiology approaches.
Jie Yu email
Postdoc
Jie received a BS degree in biology from Jilin University, China in 2010, then joined the lab of Dr. Maojun Yang in the Center for Structural Biology at Tsinghua University. In her graduate research, she mainly focused on the underlying mechanism for substrate specificity of amino acid ABC transporters using X-ray crystallography. After receiving her Ph.D. degree in the summer of 2015, Jie joined the Gouaux Lab in early 2016 and is currently investigating the structural and functional properties of the key proteins in the development of chronic myelogenous leukemia, combining X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy.
Yan Zhao email
Postdoc
Yan received his BS degree in Biophysics in 2010 and then was admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China for doctoral study. In July 2011, he joined Professor Cai Zhang's lab in the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, to study the structure and function of transporters that belong to the major facilitator superfamily. After earning his PhD degree, Yan joined the Gouaux lab in the summer of 2015 and is currently investigating the structure and function of neurotransmitter receptors.
Hongtao Zhu email
Postdoc
Hongtao received his BA degree from Ocean University of China in 2009, then began his PhD work in the lab of Ping Zhu at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he worked mainly on virus-like particles using CryoEM. After receiving his PhD in 2014, he continued his work in the Zhu lab for a year. Hongtao joined Eric Gouaux's lab in November 2015 to study the structure and function of neurotransmitter receptors.
NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence
Steven Mansoor email
Assistant Professor, OHSU Knight Cardiovascular Institute
Steve graduated from Reed College in 1997 with a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology before matriculating into the MD/PhD program at Oregon Health & Science University in 1999. For his PhD dissertation, he developed fluorescence techniques to study membrane protein structure and conformational changes, with a focus on understanding the dynamics of G-protein coupled receptor activation. Currently, Steve is an assistant professor in the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at OHSU and has been awarded an NIH K99 Pathway to Independence Award to study the structure/function of purinergic receptors under the mentorship of Eric Gouaux.
Alanna McCarthy email
Research Assistant II
Alanna earned her B.S. degree in Cell and Molecular Biology with a Chemistry minor from Seattle University in 2017. As an undergraduate, she investigated instances of cardiac myopathy in mice with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and characterized homing endonuclease structure and activity. Alanna currently works as an assistant to Dr. Steve Mansoor studying the structure/function of purinergic receptors.