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Biographical Sketch

Ulf Skoglund Ph.D.

     Dr. Skoglund, born 1950, received his Ph.D. in 1969 at Stockholm University, Sweden. He was an Professor 1996 – 2009 at Karolinska Instute, Stockholm, Sweden. Since 2010, he is a Professor in Structural Cellular Biology at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan.
He has developed electron-tomographic technologies allowing for images of proteins to be generated so that e.g. X-ray structures can be fitted into the 3D densities.  This technique is termed COMET (constrained maximum entropy tomography). His Unit has also developed a large-scale dynamics method that allows for quantitative calculations of molecular movements in solution. Current developments concern the mathematics and improvements of the basic 3D reconstruction principles, as well as work on cell biology projects.

Selection of publications using electron tomography with COMET.
1.  Sara Sandin, Lars-Göran Öfverstedt, Ann-Charlotte Wikström, Örjan Wrange and Ulf Skoglund Structure and flexibility of individual immunoglobulin G molecules in solution Structure 12, 409-415 (2004).
2. Jorma Wartiovaara, Lars-Göran Öfverstedt, Jamshid Khoshnoodi, Jingjing Zhang, Eetu Mäkelä, Sara Sandin, Vesa Ruotsalainen, R. Holland Cheng, Hannu Jalanko,  Ulf Skoglund, and Karl Tryggvason Nephrin strands contribute to a porous slit diaphragm scaffold as revealed by electron tomography. J. Clin. Invest. 114, 1475-1483 (2004)
3. T. L. Blundell, G. F. Vande Woude, U. Skoglund and D. I. Svergun Structural basis of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor and MET signalling. PNAS 103, 4046-4051 (2006)
4. E. Klaile, O. Vorontsova, K. Sigmundsson, M. M. Müller, B. B. Singer, L.-G. Öfverstedt, S. Svenssn, U Skoglund and B. Öbrink The CEACAM1 N-terminal Ig-domain mediates cis and trans binding and is essential for allosteric rearrangements of CEACAM1 microclusters JCB, 187:4, 553-567 (2009)
5. P.J.Walser, N. Ariotti, M. Howes, C. Ferguson, R. Webb, Do. Schwudke, N. Leneva, K.-J. Cho, L. Cooper, J. Rae, M. Floetenmeyer, V.M.J. Oorschot, U. Skoglund, K. Simons, J.F. Hancock, R.G. Parton Constitutive Formation of Caveolae in a Bacterium. Cell, 150, 752-763 (2012)

Ichi Maruyama      Ph.D.

Ichiro Maruyama received his Ph.D. in 1981 from University of Tokyo, Japan.  Subsequently he was trained as a post-doctoral fellow in MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, where he started to work on the nervous system of the model organism C. elegans. He then moved to the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor, where he became interested in molecular mechanisms of activation of cell-surface receptors. After spending a few years at Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore, as Senior Group Leader, he is currently Professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, where he continue to work on transmembrane signaling by cell-surface receptors as well as on learning and memory in C. elegans.

Selected recent publications
1) Tao, R.-H., & Maruyama, I.N. (2008) All the EGF(ErbB) receptors have preformedhomo- and heterodimeric structures in living cells. Journal of Cell Science 121, 3207-3217.
2) Shen, J. & Maruyama I.N. (2011) Nerve growth factor receptor TrkA exists as a preformed, yet inactive, dimer in living cells. FEBS Letters 585, 295-299.
3) Amano, H., & Maruyama, I.N. (2011) Aversive olfactory learning and associative long-term memory in Caenorhabditis elegans. Learning & Memory 18, 654-665.
4) Murayama, T., Takayama, J., Fujiwara, M. & Maruyama, I. N. (2013) Environmental alkalinity sensing mediated by the transmembrane guanylyl cyclase GCY-14 in C. elegans. Current Biology 23, 1007-1012.
5) Murayama, T. & Maruyama, I. N. (2013) Decision making in C. elegans chemotaxis to alkaline pH: Competition between two sensory neurons, ASEL and ASH. Communicative & Integrative Biology 6, e26633.