Office
(631) 632-8564
Email
Erwin.London@stonybrook.edu
Stony Brook University
College of Arts and Sciences
420 Life Sciences Building
Stony Brook, NY 11794-8564
Erwin London, PhD
Distinguished Professor, College of Arts and Sciences,
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
Research Program
Lipid Signaling and Metabolism in CancerDepartment
Joint Appointment with Department of Biochemistry and Cell BiologyResearch Interest
The Structure and Function of Cholesterol-Rich Membrane Domains
Together with Dr. Deborah Brown in the Dept. Of Biochemistry and Cell Biology we have been studying the structure and function of lipid domains enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipid. These domains have been proposed to have a functional role in processes such as viral and toxin entry into cells, protein sorting among organelles, signal transduction, prion formation and amyloid formation. Our studies involve determining in artificial lipid vesicles the basic principles that drive the formation of these domains and regulate their lipid and protein composition. We are also carrying out studies on these domains in mammalian cells (see below).
Membrane Asymmetry: Effect Upon Membrane Domains, Membrane Protein Function, and Drug Delivery
A limitation of using artificial membranes has been that they lack lipid asymmetry, the difference in lipid composition in their inner and outer layers found in many natural membranes. We invented a method to prepare asymmetric artificial vesicles that more closely mimic natural membranes using cyclodextrins, and are applying this methodology: to analyze the rules for domain formation in natural membranes, to examine how asymmetry affects amyloid formation (in collaboration with the lab of Dr. Daniel Raleigh), and to determine how asymmetric lipid vesicles (asymmetric liposomes) may have improved properties for delivery of drugs into cells.
Controlling Lipid Composition in Membranes of Living Cells
The lab also has developed a method to efficiently replace the natural lipid composition of the outer leaflet of cell plasma membranes with other lipids using cyclodextrins. Using this novel method we are studying domain formation in the plasma membrane of cells, and how its lipid composition influences the function of membrane proteins such as the insulin receptor (in collaboration with the lab of Dr. Todd Miller, Physiology and Biophysics).
Education
B.A., Queens College of the City University of New York, 1974Ph.D., Cornell University, 1980
Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology