Our warm congratulations to Dr Yunyun Han...
Prof. Michael Herzog and Dr Yunyun Han
...who has been awarded the Brain Mind Institute (BMI) and the PhD program in neuroscience 2011 Best BMI Thesis Award for her thesis work on “RIM Determines Ca2+ Channel Density and Vesicle Docking at the Presynaptic Active Zone”.
In her PhD thesis work, Dr. Yunyun Han has investigated the role of RIM proteins in the coupling between Ca channels and vesicles during synaptic transmission. For this purpose, she has used the large, experimentally accessible calyx of Held synapse as a model system. She has established the use of a conditional double knock-out approach using a Cre-lox system at the calyx of Held. This has allowed her to study the role of RIM proteins for presynaptic Ca channel function more directly than what had been possible until now.
With these innovative approaches, Yunyun Han could show an unsuspected role of RIM proteins in enriching Ca channels at the active zone. This PhD thesis has model character for future studies of the role of presynaptic proteins in synaptic transmission.