Centre Broca Nouvelle-Aquitaine – Conference room
Andres Barria
Univ. of Washington
. 2012 – present: Associate Professor, Physiology & Biophysics, Univ. of Washington
. 2008 – present: Affiliated Faculty, Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, Univ. of Washington
. 2005 – 2012: Assistant Professor, Physiology & Biophysics, Univ. of Washington
. 1998 – 2005: Postdoctoral Fellow, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
. 1992 – 1998: Graduate School, Vollum Institute, Oregon Health Sciences Univ. & School of Medicine Universidad de Chile
. 1990 – 1992: Undergraduate Research, School of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Univ. of Chile.
Invited by Daniel Choquet and Laurent Groc (IINS)
Summary
Research in my laboratory focuses on trafficking and regulation of ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) and their function in synaptic physiology and circuit development. To this end, my laboratory uses and develops technologies that combine molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, as well as expression of engineered genes and siRNAs in neurons to do electrophysiological, imaging, and behavioral experiments.
My training and expertise includes biochemistry, molecular biology, electrophysiology, and fluorescence microscopy.
I contributed significantly to the current molecular model that explains long-term potentiation (LTP), a molecular and cellular model for learning and memory, by: i) studying phosphorylation of glutamate receptors during LTP and ii) developing optical and electrophysiological tags to study trafficking and function of NMDA-Rs using 2P fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiological techniques.
Currently, my lab focuses on two main research programs: 1) Role and trafficking of NMDARs, and 2) Regulation of glutamatergic synapses by Wnt signaling.
Key contributions from my lab include identification of molecular determinants that control trafficking of NMDARs, establishment of the role of NR2 subunits during synaptogenesis, and identification of a novel role for Wnt signaling in the mature brain.