Claus Juul Løland

Professor

Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen

Biography

The main expertise of the Løland Lab is on structure-function relationships in membrane transporters with focus on the Neurotransmitter:Sodium Symporter (NSS) class of proteins.

We elucidate, at atomic level resolution, the molecular mechanisms, which mediate the transport of substrate across the cell membrane. We map the binding sites and binding modes for substrates and inhibitory drugs and characterize the impact of the drugs on protein conformation.

The results are correlated to differences in the therapeutic effects (Loland et al. 2012, Biol Psych; Slack et al. 2019, J Med Chem) as assessed through behavioral paradigms on rodent models by our collaborator Amy Newman (Scientific Director for National Inst. On Drug Abuse. NIH, Baltimore).

We have special expertise in finding compounds with allosteric binding properties (Plenge et al. 2020, Nat Commun) and elucidate the intra-protein communication between the allosteric and orthosteric binding sites.

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