We are located in the Wood Basic Science Building in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Our laboratory has broad background and expertise in using biochemical, proteomic, molecular, and cellular approaches, in combination with mouse genetics, to dissect protein homeostasis signaling mechanisms in neuronal biology. Over the years we have focused our efforts toward the proteasome pathways in the mammalian central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. We discovered a novel neuronal-specific transmembrane-like proteasome complex that modulates neuronal signaling through extracellular proteasome-derived peptides. This neuronal membrane proteasome (NMP) and its peptides (NMP peptides) contributes to activity-dependent neuronal signaling in the CNS, is disrupted in Alzheimer’s disease, and we now know functions in the PNS to modulate sensory neuron function and behavior related to touch and pain. The robustness, uniqueness, and reproducibility of our findings have driven us to generate significant future advances in tools, approaches and information to comprehend the role of this signaling in the CNS and PNS in health, disease, and related pathologies. This field continues to grow and the research direction related to the NMP and NMP peptides is the laboratory’s primary long-term research focus. We are addressing:

• What are the mechanisms the mediate the assembly and function of the NMP in the nervous system?
• What are the NMP peptide sequences and what impact do they have on neuronal signaling?
• What is the importance NMPs and NMP peptides to neuron specific functions and behavior?

We hope to leverage our findings in order to better define this emerging field and provide the tools and information important for our research and the field of cellular and molecular neuroscience as a whole. We are an inclusive and diverse laboratory that has worked collectively to address these and other important questions in neurobiology. Our efforts have lead to NIH-funded grants to the PI, and seven trainees independently acquiring funding from NSF, HHMI, NIH and internal and external foundations.  We have many collaborators around the world and work closely with them on all aspects of proteasome biology in the nervous system.