NEWS

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Thrilled to announce that we have been awarded NARSAD Young Investigator Grant for our ongoing research. We appreciate the significant support from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (www.bbrfoundation.org).

Link: https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/dr-park-selected-for-the-2023-narsad-young-investigator-grant-53955

Chemogenetic regulation of the TARP-lipid interaction mimics LTP and reversibly modifies behavior.

Park J, Berthoux C, Hoyos-Ramirez E, Shan L, Morimoto-Tomita M, Wang Y, Castillo PE, Tomita S.

Cell Rep (2023) 42: 112826. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112826 PMID: 37471228

"Here, we report the development of a chemogenetic tool, ExSYTE (Excitatory SYnaptic Transmission modulator by Engineered TARPγ-8), to mimic the cytoplasmic interaction of TARP with the plasma membrane in a doxycycline-dependent manner."

"Thus, chemogenetic controlling of the TARP-membrane interaction is sufficient for LTP-like synaptic AMPAR insertion, which mimics fear conditioning."

Link: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(23)00837-9
Link: https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/new-tool-to-mimic-synaptic-plasticity-dr-joongkyu-park-lab-53794

The Troyer syndrome protein spartin mediates selective autophagy of lipid droplets.

Chung J, Park J, Lai ZW, Lambert TJ, Richards RC, Farese RV Jr, Walther TC.

Nat Cell Biol (2023) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-023-01178-w

"Here we identify spartin as a receptor localizing to LDs and interacting with core autophagy machinery, and we show that spartin is required to deliver LDs to lysosomes for triglyceride mobilization."

"Interfering with spartin function in cultured human neurons or murine brain neurons leads to LD and triglyceride accumulation."

"Our identification of spartin as a lipophagy receptor, thus, suggests that impaired LD turnover contributes to Troyer syndrome development."

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-023-01178-w

Highlighted in: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add3509
Highlighted in: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15548627.2023.2247311
Highlighted in: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/scisignal.adk7152

Link: https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/a-lipophagy-receptor-in-neurons-dr-joongkyu-park-lab-53755

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Thrilled to announce that we have been awarded Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center (MADC) Developmental Project grant for our ongoing AD research. We appreciate the significant support from MADC/MADRC (https://alzheimers.med.umich.edu/).

Thrilled to announce that we have been awarded an Alzheimer's Association Research Grant (AARG) for our ongoing research. With this support, we aim to understand how compartmental protein demand and homeostasis are modified in Alzheimer’s disease models. We appreciate the significant support from the Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org). #ENDALZ

Link: https://today.wayne.edu/medicine/news/2023/05/30/alzheimers-association-supports-synaptic-research-by-school-of-medicines-joongkyu-park-phd-53509

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Link: https://urop.wayne.edu/award
Link: https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/bridget-bone-awarded-funding-50366

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https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/phd-student-anna-gretzinger-receives-doctoral-student-award-49097

Link: https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/news/dr-joongkyu-park-selected-as-recipient-of-teaching-award-49095
Link: https://today.wayne.edu/medicine/news/2022/09/08/school-celebrates-faculty-promotions-tenure-and-awards-sept-29-49175

NMDA receptor-targeted enrichment of CaMKIIα improves fear memory.

Chifor A, Choi J, Park J.

iScience (2022) 25: 104864. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104864

"Capitalizing on the fact that long-term potentiation requires N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) and Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II alpha (CaMKIIα), we develop an intrabody that targets NMDARs and show that intrabody-mediated postsynaptic enrichment of CaMKIIα in the hippocampus improves contextual fear memory. "

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35996578/

Link: https://alzheimers.med.umich.edu/2022/05/13/announcing-our-2022-isadore-margaret-mezey-conference-award-recipients/

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https://today.wayne.edu/medicine/news/2022/02/15/2022-medical-student-research-symposium-award-winners-announced-46945

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The 2021 Medical Student Research Virtual Symposium at Wayne State University School of Medicine announced today that Anthony Chifor is the recipient of the 1st place winner of the Basic Science Research for the development of novel, genetically encoded tools. Congratulations, Anthony!

Graduate students: Graduate students who are highly motivated to study molecular neuroscience (through the Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State University) are encouraged to apply.
Details are available via https://pharmacology.med.wayne.edu/pharm-phd

Postdocs & Research assistants: Not available at this moment.

Feel free to email to joongkyu.park@wayne.edu.

Phosphorylation of the AMPAR-TARP Complex in Synaptic Plasticity.
Park J.
Proteomes (2018) 6: 40. Review. doi: 10.3390/proteomes6040040
• Special Issue "Neuroproteomics"

"This review summarizes the studies on phosphorylation of the AMPAR pore-forming subunits and auxiliary proteins including transmembrane AMPA receptor regulatory proteins (TARPs) and discusses its role in synaptic plasticity."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30297624/

Park lab (www.synapsepark.com) is open! We start an adventure to understand synaptic molecular dynamics underlying normal and pathological behavioral processes.