Brief Biography
I studied Medical School at the National University in Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México) and Biochemistry at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados) under Carlos Gitler. I then did a PhD in Physiology at the University of Cambridge in the UK, working in the Physiological Laboratory with Richard Keynes, where I learned about neuronal excitability and began my career studying ion channels. I investigated the mechanisms of inactivation of voltage-gated sodium channels. I presented a thesis entitled “Inactivation Mechanisms in Nerves” and my examiners were Alan Hodgkin and Hans Meves. Through one part of this work, the characterization of the sodium channels in the giant axon of the sea worm Myxicola, I first became aware that ion channels could have diverse properties and that this diversity could contribute to neuronal signaling. Subsequently I did postdoctoral work as a Fogarty fellow in the laboratory of Paul Mueller, who developed the artificial lipid bilayer with Donald O. Rudin. In 1980 I took a faculty position in what was then known as the Department of Physiology and Biophysics (now the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience) at the New York University School of Medicine. Except for a two year period that I spent at Caltech in the laboratory of Henry Lester and Norman Davidson, where I learned modern molecular biology, I have remained at NYU. Here my research has focused on first understanding the molecular basis of the diversity of ion channels and later the physiological significance of this diversity focusing primarily in the thalamocortical system. My main research interests are neuronal signaling, modulation and plasticity.