Mu-Ming Poo

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Mu-Ming Poo (also Mu-ming Poo or Muming Poo , 蒲慕明; born October 31, 1948 in Nanjing , China ) is a Sino -American neuroscientist .

Life

Poo was born in mainland China in 1948. When he was one year old, his father, an aerospace engineer , went with his family to the Republic of China, on the island of Taiwan , where Poo grew up.

He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Tsing Hua National University in 1970 and a Ph.D. from Richard Cone in 1974 from Johns Hopkins University. in biophysics . As a postdoctoral fellow , he worked at Purdue University and the Marine Biological Laboratory , respectively , before receiving a first professorship (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine , in 1976 . In 1979 he became an associate professor there , and in 1983 he was given a full professorship. After a research professorship in molecular neurobiology at Yale University (1985–1988), Poo took on a professorship at Columbia University ( New York City ). An intermezzo (1996–2000) at the University of California, San Diego , was followed by a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley , where Poo is still active today (as of 2016), most recently as professor emeritus of neurobiology. Poo is a US citizen.

Since 1999, Poo has also been director of the Institute of Neuroscience (based in Shanghai ) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences .

Act

Poo compares his scientific career with a random walk ( random walk ) . Whenever he comes across an interesting problem, he works on it until he can no longer contribute. Then he turns to other things. ("I characterize my career as a random walk. When I bump into an interesting problem, I work on it for as long as I can contribute. Then I move on.")

At the beginning of his career, Poo dealt with issues of mobility and the location of proteins in the cell membrane . As a doctoral student, Poo developed the method of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching . As a postdoctoral fellow or during his first professorship, he developed the method of in-situ electrophoresis .

From the mid-1980s, Poo was concerned with the localization of proteins in synapses , the connection points between nerve cells . He could show that the growth cone (growth cone) of motor neurons already on its way to muscle cells , acetylcholine can be eliminated and that after contact of nerve and muscle cells within minutes forming a functional synapse. Poo found that neurotrophins accelerate this process, which opened up the research area of synaptic plasticity . Poo and co-workers developed the growth cone turning assay , a test to determine the influence of extracellular factors (especially axon guidance factors ) on the direction of growth of axons . But Poo and co-workers also investigated the influence of the internal state of the cell, in particular the level of cyclic nucleotides , on the direction of growth.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Poo has been concerned with the differentiation of axons and dendrites in the early development of nerve cells. His work led to various discoveries, for example that cyclic nucleotides also influence the development of axons or dendrites, or the existence of a cytoskeletal network in the area of ​​the initial segment that regulates the transport of proteins into the growing axon. In addition, Poo contributed to the characterization of the phenomenon of spike-timing dependent plasticity , which plays an important role in the efficiency of synaptic transmission and is central to functions such as learning and memory , but also of critical importance for the formation of connections between nerve cells of the visual system Has.

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CV, as of 2009 ( Microsoft Word document, 159 kB) at the University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu); accessed on June 11, 2016.
  2. ^ A b Mu-Ming Poo - The Gruber Foundation. In: gruber.yale.edu. Retrieved June 11, 2016 .
  3. ↑ M. Poo, RA Cone: Lateral diffusion of rhodopsin in the photoreceptor membrane. In: Nature . Volume 247, Number 5441, February 1974, pp. 438-441, PMID 4818543 .
  4. ↑ M. Poo: In situ electrophoresis of membrane components. In: Annual review of biophysics and bioengineering. Volume 10, 1981, pp. 245-276, doi: 10.1146 / annurev.bb.10.060181.001333 , PMID 7020576 (review).
  5. ^ Convocation. In: academicians.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved June 11, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Mu-Ming poo - Docteur Honoris Causa 2003. In: ens.fr. Retrieved May 2, 2019 (French).
  7. ↑ Muming Poo. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved June 11, 2016 .
  8. ^ Foreign Members - Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In: english.casad.cas.cn. Retrieved June 11, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Poo, mu-ming
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Poo, muming; Poo, muming; 蒲慕明
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese-American neuroscientist
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Nanjing , China