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Mark
L. Mayer, Ph.D.
Dr. Mayer received a B.Sc. 1st class
hons from Bristol University in 1977 and a Ph.D. for studies
on synaptic mechanisms in the hypothalamus and brain stem
from the University of London in 1980. Stimulated by work
on the M-current by Adams and Brown in the late 1970s he developed
an interest in biophysics and came to the US in 1980 as a Harkness
fellow to train at the University of Texas and the NIH. He
then returned to the UK and held a Beit Memorial fellowship
at the University of London from 1982-1984.
Early in his career
Dr. Mayer did pioneering work on the biophysics of inward
rectifier, calcium activated chloride, and glutamate receptor
ion channels in CNS neurons. In mid career Dr. Mayer took a 1 year sabbatical at Columbia University in 1999 to learn X-ray crystallography in the laboratory of Eric Gouaux. His lab at the NIH now combines biophysics and macromolecular
crystallography in an attempt to understand in molecular detail
how ligand gated ion channels are tuned for their diverse
roles at central synapses and has solved structures for the ligand binding domains of GluR5, GluR6, NR3A and NR3B, and the amino terminal domain of GluR6. Using this approach molecular mechanisms for desensitization and allosteric regulation were established, together with the structural basis for the subtype selective binding properties of NMDA and kainate receptor subtypes.
Dr. Mayer was recruited to the NICHD
as an Investigator in 1987. He received the Society for Neuroscience
Young Investigator award in 1989 for work with Gary Westbrook
on Ca permeability and Mg block of NMDA receptors and an NIH
Merit award in 2003. Dr. Mayer is listed in the ISI highly
cited researchers data base; his H-index is > 50 and papers
from his lab have been cited more than 15,000 times
by other groups. He has served on the MDCN3 study section;
the editorial boards of Molecular Pharmacology, The Journal
of Neuroscience and The Journal of Neurophysiology; the tenure
committees of NICHD and NINDS; and was chair of the 2004 Ion
Channels Gordon Research Conference.
Dr. Mayer still works full time in the laboratory
doing experimental work.
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