Dr. Mendell Rimer
Office: PAT 307A
phone: (512) 471-1747
lab: 471-4792
fax: 471-9651
email:
News: Recent Rimer paper
cited by Faculty of 1000
Mendell Rimer is a native of Merida, Venezuela and received his undergraduate education at the Universidad de Los Andes, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Dr. Rimer obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. Following postdoctoral work at Stanford and New York University, Dr. Rimer joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in the Fall 2000. In 2004, Dr. Rimer was invited to lecture in a neuroscience course organized by the International Brain Research Organization at the University of Bucharest, Romania.
Research Interests
Behaviors in human beings, such as thinking, learning, reading, talking, or moving, have a biological component that is rooted in interactions between networks of cells in the central and peripheral nervous system. These cells, the neurons, “talk” to each other by transmitting certain chemical signals, the neurotransmitters, across sites of physical contact called synapses. Thus, synapses ultimately control all behaviors, and study of synapses is fundamental for understanding how the nervous system works normally and under pathological situations.
Following the motto: “one way to understand how something works is to understand how it is put together”, we study how synapses are formed and maintained. We use the mammalian neuromuscular junction (NMJ) as model synapse because of its simplicity and experimental accessibility. The NMJ is the synapse between a motor neuron and a skeletal muscle fiber. The motor neuron makes the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) in a structure called the nerve terminal. ACh is released from the nerve terminal onto the muscle fiber surface, where ACh receptors (AChRs) bind to it, which in turn, triggers a series of events that ultimately lead to muscle contraction. The reliability of muscle contraction depends on large part on having enough AChRs on the muscle membrane to respond appropriately every time ACh is around. Indeed, AChRs are highly concentrated in clusters on the muscle plasma membrane, and this concentration of neurotransmitter receptors is one hallmark feature of all synapses. Moreover, clustering of AChRs is among the first events in NMJ formation in the embryo. For these reasons, the molecular mechanisms that drive AChR clustering are the main subjects of study in our lab. Specifically, we use mouse molecular genetics and standard molecular, cellular, and immunological techniques, to investigate the function of proteins that direct the assembly of AChR clusters. We will then apply the rules learned at the NMJ to study mechanisms of synapse formation in neuron-neuron synapses in the central nervous system.