Claudio Giraudo, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the National University of Cordoba, Argentina

By flipping exocytic SNAREs to the outside of cells, and measuring their activity in fusing whole cells, we create a compositionally virgin environment in which factors involved in Calcium-regulated exocytosis can be added one at a time or in combination to reveal their roles with clarity.

This approach allowed us to identify the molecular mechanism by which Complexin and Synaptotagmin-I couple the fusion machinery (SNARE proteins) and the calcium stimulus.

We are now narrowing the focus to capitalize on our discovery of a minimal machine for calcium-triggered exocytosis and we are concentrating on the structural and functional basis of the minimal machinery for calcium control.