Reinhard Jahn

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
Director, Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

EDUCATION:
• Study of biology and chemistry, doctorate Göttingen University (1981)
• Postdoctoral fellow, Yale University and Rockefeller University (1983-1985)

AWARDS:
• Max Planck Research Prize (1990)
• Leibniz-Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (2000)
• Ernst Jung-Prize for Medicine (2006)

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Eukaryotic cells are compartmentalized into membrane-bound organelles. Membrane-impermeant macromolecules are transported from one compartment to another, and in and out of cells, without compromising membrane integrity. Furthermore, organelles need to be generated continuously during growth. To achieve these goals, elaborate mechanisms evolved for budding, splitting, and fusion of organelles and of whole cells without leakage of intraorganellar content or disturbance of the asymmetry of the surrounding membranes. We are mainly interested in the molecular mechanisms of membrane fusion with a focus on exocytosis of synaptic vesicles and fusion of endosomes. In recent years it has become clear that most, and perhaps all, intracellular membrane fusion events are mediated by sets of evolutionarily conserved membrane proteins. Among these, the SNARE proteins are the best candidates for catalyzing the fusion reaction. SNARE proteins are abundant on intracellular membranes and readily form stable complexes. It is currently thought that these proteins operate as 'nanomachines' which force the membranes together and thus initiate membrane fusion. SNARE proteins interact with a long and still growing list of other proteins that regulate their conformation and control their availability for the fusion reaction. We study membrane fusion using a variety of complementary experimental approaches. They include an analysis of SNAREs and SNARE-interacting proteins with biochemical and biophysical techniques, correlation of structure with function of SNAREs in yeast, study of vesicle fusion using native and artificial membranes, characterization of how exo- and endocytotic sites at the plasma membrane are organized, and measurement of exocytosis with electrophysiological methods. Furthermore, we are interested to find out how neurotransmitters are sequestered and stored in synaptic vesicles.

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