Comert Kural
Ohio State University, OH·Biophysics
Neurons talk to each other by releasing chemical messengers from tiny sacs called synaptic vesicles. They then quickly pull the vesicle membrane back in through endocytosis so it can be reused.
- Fields
Biophysics
Neuroscience
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
super-resolution microscopy
TIRF microscopy
total internal reflection fluorescence
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Build and iteratively optimize a 3D TIRF-SIM microscope, combining surface-limited illumination, patterned-light super-resolution and evanescent field nanometry, for the best spatial and temporal resolution.
- Test the optimized microscope by reconstructing clathrin-coated structures, the protein cages that drive endocytosis, in live cultured cells in three dimensions.
- Apply 3D TIRF-SIM to Drosophila melanogaster embryo tissue to address long-standing questions about how endocytosis proceeds in living tissue.
- Establish the imaging tool for visualizing how synaptic vesicle release is coupled to membrane retrieval in living neurons.
More about the research
If this recycling fails, signaling between neurons breaks down, and such problems are linked to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. How release and retrieval are coupled is still unclear, mainly because current microscopes cannot see such small, fast events in living cells.
Why it matters
Faulty recycling of synaptic vesicles is linked to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. A microscope that can watch these nanoscale events in real time in living cells could give researchers new insight into how neurons sustain communication. That insight could eventually point to new treatment strategies for disorders involving synaptic dysfunction.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph Falke
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Biochemistry
Determine how Class 1 and Class 3 PI3K enzymes integrate calcium, receptor and G protein inputs, and whether these combine additively, synergistically or in opposition, using single-molecule TIRF microscopy on supported lipid bilayers.
Hsin-Chih Yeh
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Biomedical Engineering
Develop live-cell imaging methods that show glycoRNAs, small RNAs carrying sugar chains on the cell surface, alongside their sugar-free RNA counterparts, to compare their abundance, location, membrane movement and trafficking.
Xu Wang
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Biochemistry
Design and produce lysosomal GAG-degrading enzymes, each with its own fluorescent label, and use TIRFM single-molecule microscopy to characterize the signal each produces when it binds the correct surface-attached substrate.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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