Eduardo Perozo is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is a molecular neurobiologist whose research aims to understand the physiological and structural mechanism underlying ion channels and other membrane proteins associated to electrical and mechanical signaling.
Perozo’s lab seeks to define the molecular principles that drive the transduction of different forms energy, such as electric fields and mechanical forces, into protein motion. He is particularly interested in protein dynamics, which link structure to function. The Perozo lab uses a combination of functional measurements at the single molecule and ensemble levels, biochemistry and molecular biology, and EPR spectroscopy, performing structural analyses through a combination X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy of single particles. These structural techniques help them understand biological functions like mechanosensitivity in hearing and proprioception, and how proteins sense changes in electrical voltage in neurons and other excitable tissues.
Perozo is the director of the newly formed Center for Mechanical Excitability, a Senior Fellow of the UChicago Institute for Integrative Physiology, and is affiliated with the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics.
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