How general anesthetics work has remained a mystery since the introduction of these drugs into clinical practice 160 years ago. Work in my laboratory is focused on where these drugs go in the nervous system and what they do when they get there, at the molecular level. We typically use a combination of molecular biologic and biophysical techniques such as patch-clamp electrophysiology, site directed mutagenesis and computational modeling to better understand how general anesthetics modulate the function of the GABA A receptor, the most abundant fast inhibitory neurotransmitter receptor in the central nervous system.


We currently have openings for resident anesthesiologists, graduate students and undergraduate honors students.