I started my lab at Genentech in June 2009. Prior to this, I was a scientist at Roche in Palo Alto studying ion channels involved in inflammatory disorders. Being a scientist at Genentech is a dream job for me. It has the perfect blend of the practical world of drug discovery and the scientific rigor of an academic institution. Prior to Roche and Genentech, I was a senior scientist at Renovis, a small biotech in South San Francisco, where I worked in the areas of pain and inflammation.

• My Focus

  My lab focuses on ion channels and their roles in neurologic disease. Ion channels are membrane proteins that have the ability to regulate the flow of ions across the cell's membrane. By rapidly opening and closing in precise ways, ion channels play a pivotal role in the functioning of the nervous system. Under pathological conditions, such as those that occur in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, ion channels can cause dysfunction and damage to the neurons that express them. The goal of my work is to identify ion channels that open inappropriately under these pathological conditions in the hope of finding novel targets for neurodegenerative disease.

  A second area of interest in my lab are the ion channels that are involved in pain. Pain-sensing neurons express a unique set of ion channels that are not found in any other cell in the body. These channels are involved in the detection of nociceptive stimuli as well as the transduction of nociceptive information into the CNS. We are working to develop drugs capable of selectively blocking these ion channels to inhibit pain without causing the side-effects found in currently available pain medications.

• Publications

  • Histone Deacetylase 2 Cell Autonomously Suppresses Excitatory and Enhances Inhibitory Synaptic Function in CA1 Pyramidal Neurons

    Journal of Neuroscience, 2013, ISSN: 0270-6474

    Hanson, Jesse E; Deng, Lunbin; Hackos, David H; Lo, Shih-Ching; Lauffer, Benjamin E; Steiner, Pascal; Zhou, Qiang

     View on PubMed

• Education
  • Roche Palo Alto, Research Scientist II – 2007-2009
  • University of California, San Francisco, Department of Biophysics, Ph.D. – 1998
  • National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Postdoctoral Training – 1998-2001
  • Johns Hopkins University, Department of Biophysics, B.A. – 1991
• Awards & Honors
  • National Institute of General Medicine Studies, Pharmaceutical Research Associate Program Fellowship – 2001
  • Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation Scholarship Award – 1998
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute Pre-doctoral Fellowship – 1997
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Fellowship – 1991