Dr. Leonard Kaczmarek

Biography

Leonard Kaczmarek carried out undergraduate and graduate work at the University of London, continuing his research career at the University of California, Los Angeles where he learned electrophysiology, and at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, where he developed neural network models. He joined the Yale faculty in 1981. The Kaczmarek group studies biochemical changes in neurons that result from prolonged changes in behavior and how animals detect specific patterns of sensory inputs. He is well-known for discovering genes that code for ion channel proteins that are directly responsible for the excitability of nerve cells. His work has demonstrated that rapid changes in the phosphorylation state of ion channels occur in response to changes in the animal’s environment. Currently, his lab focuses on mutations in proteins that are responsible for forms of intellectual disability and autism. Kaczmarek has mentored numerous talented pre-doctoral and postdoctoral trainees, with thirty-two former students and postdocs holding tenure-track faculty positions at major institutions such as Brown University, Yale University, UCSF, UCSD, and Vanderbilt.

Research Interests