Principal Investigator
Baron Chanda, Ph.D.
Dr. Baron Chanda’s primary research interest is to understand the mechanisms of electrical signaling by membrane proteins such as ion channels. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from the University of Delhi and a Masters degree in Biotechnology (Biophysics specialization) from the University of Pune, India. He obtained his Ph.D. at the National Center for Biological Sciences in India where he gained expertise in membrane protein biochemistry, fluorescence spectroscopy, and basic electrophysiology. In 2000, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles to conduct postdoctoral research with Dr. Francisco Bezanilla. During this time, he did foundational work on mechanisms of gating of sodium and potassium channels using the newly developed voltage-clamp fluorometry. In the fall of 2006, he joined the Department of Physiology (now Neuroscience) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. In 2015, he was jointly appointed as a professor in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry. As of late spring 2020, he joined WashU Medicine as a Professor of Anesthesiology and has secondary appointments in the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Neuroscience. While his scientific approach is rooted in reductionism, Chanda’s long-term interest is to gain a comprehensive understanding of ion channel function in a physiological context. Throughout his scientific career, he has also been actively involved in either developing or adopting new technologies to study mechanistic underpinnings of ion channel function.
bchanda (at) wustl.edu | 314-273-6811 | Twitter: @ChandaLab06 | LinkedIn: link
Lab Manager
Rob Tryon, Ph.D.
rtryon (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Senior Scientist
Yongchang Chang, M.D., Ph.D.
Yongchang received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1998. He studied structure-function relationship of the pentameric ligand-gated ion channels for many years before joining Dr. Chanda’s lab in 2020 as a senior scientist. His current main project is to optimize conditions to generate large amounts of stable proteins for spHCN (HCN from sea urchin) for structural determination by cryo-EM. He is also involved in projects for chimera design and construction between different subfamily members for studying the gating mechanisms of HCN.
yongchang (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Staff Scientist
Suhaila Rahman, Ph.D.
suhaila.rahman (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Postdoctoral Researchers
Verena Burtscher, Ph.D.
bverena (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Susovan Chowdhury, Ph.D.
susovan (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Arghya Polley, Ph.D.
polley (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Kathleen Bickel, M.D., Ph.D.
kgbickel (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Graduate Students
Jenna Lin
Jenna graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a B.S. in Bioengineering and a minor in Biological Sciences in Spring 2018. At Mizzou, she was in Drs. Lorin and Mirela Milescu labs where she developed a great interest in ion channels, electrophysiology, and neuroscience. In Fall 2018, she joined the Biophysics Graduate Program at UW-Madison, and joined Dr. Chanda’s lab the following winter. In Fall 2020, Jenna moved with the lab and joined the Biochemistry, Biophysics & Structural Biology Program at WashU. Currently, Jenna is interested in understanding the relationship between the architecture and function of ion channels via evolutionary approaches such as ancestral sequence reconstruction.
jllin (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Undergraduate Students
Grace Sugrue
g.c.sugrue (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link
Rotation Graduate Students
Audrey Chinn
Audrey received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Portland State University in 2023. From 2021-2024, she worked in Dr. Eric Gouaux’s lab at the Vollum Institute in Portland, Oregon, where she developed an interest in the structure and function of membrane proteins while studying the mechanosensory transduction complex in C. elegans as well as the human dopamine transporter. Audrey joined the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Program at WashU in Fall 2024.
a.chinn (at) wustl.edu | LinkedIn: link