User:Psychiatry777/Jonathan Javitch, M.D., Ph.D.

Jonathan A. Javitch, M.D., Ph.D.

Jonathan A. Javitch obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He completed the joint M.D.-Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where, as a graduate student with Dr. Solomon Snyder, he demonstrated that a key step in the Parkinson’s-like neurotoxicity of MPTP is the uptake of its metabolite MPP+ by the dopamine transporter. After graduating from Hopkins, Dr. Javitch completed a medical internship and psychiatric residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He did postdoctoral work on the structure of dopamine receptors with Dr. Arthur Karlin at Columbia University.

Dr. Javitch is Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology in the Center for Molecular Recognition and in Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Scientific Director of the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia Research; and Chief of the Division of Molecular Therapeutics at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. His laboratory focuses on understanding the structure, function, and regulation of G-protein coupled receptors ( GPCRs) and neurotransmitter transporters. His group has mapped, for the first time, the transmembrane interfaces of dopamine D2 receptor homo-oligomers in the plasma membrane and has identified conformational changes at the interface that determine receptor activation. His group has demonstrated that phosphorylation of the amino-terminus of the dopamine transporter is essential for amphetamine-mediated reverse transport of dopamine, and he and his collaborators have begun to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that govern this regulation. He is now pursuing studies in knock-in mice and transgenic flies to explore these mechanisms in a physiological context. His laboratory is also taking direct structural approaches to studying the structure and dynamics of bacterial transporter homologues of the human neurotransmitter transporters.

Sources

Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

New York State Psychiatric Institute

Faculty Profile for Jonathan A. Javitch, M.D., Ph.D.