From 1989 to 1991, as a graduate student in the Institute of Life Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, I was working with Dr. Yen-Chung Chang to study the kainate subtype of glutamate receptor and the relationship between kainate and glutamate binding sites of fish brain. We found that there exists a kind of kainate binding site which is insensitive to glutamate in fish brains. This work was published in the "Neuroscience" journal. The Abstract is available here.
My research career was temporarily discontinued during Summer 1991-Summer 1995 due to my military service and work as an patent engineer for two years respectively. Although I didn't do research during this period, I did learn a lot about how to think and how to solve problems. As a second lieutenant in the Army Aviation Headquarters, I had five soldiers under me to translate and reorganize technical manuals. I was responsible for managing people and books. Our unit was also responsible for the quality control of the maintenance of helicopters and the food affairs of our whole base. My work was highly evaluated by my supervisors during those two years.
While working in a patent firm, I understood the difference between science and engineering. To be a scientist, imagination and adventure are very important; however, to be an engineer, imagination and adventure are sometimes very dangerous. I love imagination and adventure both, therefore, I choose science as my career.
After accepted as a graduate student of Sackler Institute of Biomedical Science, NYU, I rotated in three laboratories of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience during 1995-1996. The first lab of my rotation was the lab of Dr. Mitchell Chesler. We studied the effects of barium to the activity-dependent alkaline shifts of hippocampus slice from rat brain. We found that barium can increase the alkaline shifts in rat CA1 hippocampus. The underlining mechanism is that the barium blocksthe acid secretion effect of glial cells in the slices.
The second lab of my rotation was the lab of Dr. Charles Nicholson. We used potassium and TMA electrodes to study the diffusion of potassium and spatial buffering in the cerebral cortex of rat brains. The result (abstract) was published at the neuroscience meeting of 1996 in Washington DC.
The third professor I was working with was Dr. Rodolfo Llinás. Dr. Llinás cooperates with Dr. Mutsuyuki Sugimori to study the mechanism of synaptic transmission. Our lab was temporarily moved to Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA during the summer. In order to study the timing of calcium currents and the calcium microdomain in the presynaptic terminal, we injected aequorin to the squid giant synapse and measured the timing of the microdomain after a spike invaded the presynaptic terminal. We also injected anti-syntaxin, anti-synaptotagmin and anti-calcium channel antibodies into the presynaptic terminal to label or observe the physiological responses of the synapse for understanding the molecular mechanism of the synaptic transmission. The result was published in the journal "Neuroscience". The abstract is available here.
I spent three years and nine months to work with Dr. Mitchell Chesler. my Ph.D. thesis advisor. My work in Mitch's lab covers many interesting areas. My first work was to study the mechanism of pH shift in lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of rat brain. The result (abstract) was published in the Neuroscience Meeting of 1997 in New Orleans. In my second year, I studied the role of extracellular alkaline shift in modulating the propagation of spreading depression, and the nature of interstitial carbonic anhydrase (CA) in the extracellular space of the brain. The first part (abstract) was published in the Neuroscience Meeting in Los Angeles in 1998 and the second part (abstract) was published at the meeting in Miami Beach, 1999. In my last year, I focused on the role of interstitial CA in modulating the extracellular alkaline shift in spatial and time frames. The results were published in the Neuroscience Meeting in New Orleans, 2000.
Following is the summary of my research during recent years: