Sathish Ramakrishnan, PhD

My research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of fusion proteins, which mediate a wide range of cellular processes, including synaptic vesicle fusion, cell growth, cytokinesis, cancer signaling, progression, and onset. We quantitively dissect the role of SNAREs, and their regulators in normal and diseased conditions using engineered suspended lipid bilayer platforms and single-molecule imaging methods. Understanding the key players of exocytosis can drive therapeutic discovery by clarifying which proteins are critical for each step in the signaling pathway and block the disease progression.