Editors & Staff
Editor-in-Chief
David Eisner, Editor-in-Chief
Calcium regulation; intracellular signalling; cardiac muscle; ion regulation
David obtained his B.A. (Natural Sciences) from Cambridge University in 1976. He was awarded a D.Phil (Oxford University) in 1979 for work on the regulation of intracellular sodium concentration and its effects on contractility, carried out under the supervision of Denis Noble. He was then a postdoc with Ian Glynn (Cambridge) studying the kinetics of the sodium pump in red blood cells before taking up a lectureship at University College London in 1980. While at UCL, he began to study calcium regulation in cardiac muscle. In 1980 he moved to the University of Liverpool and, in 1999, to Manchester University where he became The British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiac Physiology.
His research has focused on calcium cycling in the heart with particular interest on how the calcium content of the sarcoplasmic reticulum and the size of the systolic Ca transient are regulated. This work has revealed the importance of calcium fluxes being balanced during the heartbeat and has helped elucidate, not only the control of the normal Ca transient but also the changes that occur in heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. His most recent work has studied the regulation of diastolic calcium concentration.
His leadership roles include serving as President of The Physiological Society, as well as The Federation of European Physiological Societies. He has a keen interest in scientific publishing and previous held the roles of Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology and The Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/eisner.html
Associate Editors
Henk L. Granzier, Associate Editor
Structure and function of myofilament proteins; skeletal and cardiac muscle; single molecule force spectroscopy; biomechanics and integrative physiology
Henk received his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington and received postdoctoral training in Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. He works at the University of Arizona in Tucson where he is a Professor in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Bioengineering and the Norville Sarver Heart Center Endowed Chair. His research is focused on the giant elastic protein titin in muscle function and disease and on nebulin in the structure and function of the skeletal muscle thin filament.
https://physiology.arizona.edu/person/henk-l-granzier-phd
Chris Lingle, Associate Editor
Allosteric regulation of calcium and voltage regulated channels; mechanisms of channel block; mechanisms of channel regulation by auxiliary subunits and regulatory subunit stoichiometry; physiological roles of channels in native cells
Chris received a B.S. in Biology from University of Oregon. After a brief foray in graduate school (UO) in plant physiology and an interim year of “independent research” spent in part on the Oregon coast, he returned to graduate school in Neurobiology focusing on transmitter-gated responses and neurohormone modulation of neuromuscular transmission in Crustacea. During a postdoc at Brandeis with Eve Marder, he became engaged in mechanisms of channel block, taking advantage of Chris Miller’s “state-of-the-art” MINC-11 “microcomputer” to analyze synaptic current decays. After joining the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Florida State University, he began patch-clamp studies of nAChR’s in Xenopus myocytes, collaborated with Tony Auerbach then in Puerto Rico attempting noise analysis on glutamate and AChR channels in crustacean muscle (work that somehow made its way to JGP), and with Alan Neely began initial work with adrenal chromaffin cells. In 1978, he moved his lab to the Basic Research Unit in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine, headed by Joe Henry Steinbach. The work on chromaffin cells led to identification of inactivating variants of BK channels, setting the stage for many years of molecular, biophysical, and physiological studies of the role of BK channels and their regulatory subunits. Occasional forays into Ca2+ channels, Slo3 K+ channels, and Slo2 channels have failed to diminish the lure offered by the abundant intrinsic merits of BK channels. Chris has served stints on what is now the BPNS NIH study section, the Biophysical Journal editorial board, and as a Journal of Neuroscience associate editor. He was unbelievably fortunate to have ended up on this particular career path, being stimulated by a series of outstanding members of his lab, working in a field with creative, rigorous, and mutually supportive scientists, experiencing an enormous number of wonderful international friendships and experiences.
https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/about/faculty-recognition/distinguished-faculty-awards/2018-2/christopher-j-lingle-phd/
Joseph A. Mindell, Associate Editor
Biological membranes; structure/function of secondary active transporters; organellar ion dynamics
Joe Mindell was an undergraduate in the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry department at Yale University, where he was first exposed to transporter proteins during a summer internship in Carolyn Slayman’s lab. He completed the M.D./Ph.D. program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine working on single channel recordings of Diphtheria Toxin channels under the tutelage of Alan Finkelstein. After a residency in internal medicine, Joe tumbled into Chris Miller’s lab at Brandeis, where he renewed his love for really basic science. Joe joined the faculty at the intramural program in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at NIH in 2002, where he currently remains as Senior Investigator.
Mindell’s scientific interests focus on the mechanism and physiology of secondary active transporters. His lab uses a combination of biophysical and cell-biological methods to probe these proteins, with particular emphasis on bacterial secondary transporter as model systems and on the role of ClC-7 in lysosomal function in mammalian cells.
https://irp.nih.gov/pi/joseph-mindell
Jeanne Nerbonne, Associate Editor
Regulation of cardiac and neuronal membrane excitability; voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels; voltage-gated Na+ (Nav) channels; Kv/Nav channel macromolecular protein complexes; cardiac arrhythmias
Jeanne Nerbonne received a B.S. in Chemistry from Framingham State College and a Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from Georgetown University. After completing postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, she joined the Department of Pharmacology at Washington University. She is presently the Alumni Endowed Professor of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology in the Departments of Medicine, Developmental Biology and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University. She is the Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research, Co-Director of the Center for the Investigation of Membrane Excitability Diseases, and Director of a NHLBI-sponsored Training Program in Integrative and Systems Biology of Cardiovascular Disease.
Research in the Nerbonne lab explores the molecular, cellular and systemic mechanisms involved in the regulation of voltage-gated K+ (Kv) and Na+ (Nav) channels that shape cardiac and neuronal action potentials, the critical determinants of signaling and cell–cell communication in the cardiovascular and nervous systems. She and her colleagues have provided critical insights into the mechanisms contributing to the diversity of native cardiac and neuronal Kv and Nav channels, the roles of these channels in controlling normal physiology and behavior, and the functional impact of derangements in channel expression/properties associated with inherited and acquired disease.
https://nerbonnelab.wustl.edu/
Crina Nimigean, Associate Editor
Biophysics; structure; mechanism; selectivity; ligand and lipid modulation; membrane interactions; regulatory mechanisms; protein–protein interactions
Crina Nimigean has B.S./M.S. degree in Physics from Bucharest University, Romania, after which she moved to the USA and obtained a Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Miami, under the mentorship of Karl Magleby. After postdoctoral training in Chris Miller’s lab at Brandeis University, Crina’s first faculty position as Assistant Professor was in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the University of California at Davis. She moved her laboratory in 2008 to New York City at the Weill Cornell Medical College where she currently is a Professor jointly in the departments of Anesthesiology, and Physiology of Biophysics.
Crina’s research is geared toward understanding how ion channel protein structure and mechanism interrelate at the molecular level to allow channels to elaborate various biological properties. The main focus of the lab is to elucidate gating, selectivity, ligand modulation, and lipid/membrane modulation in ion channels using a wide range of biological and biophysical techniques including molecular biology, biochemistry, electrophysiology, X-ray crystallography, stopped-flow fluorescence assays, and single-particle cryo-electron microscopy. In addition, established collaborations with expertise in NMR spectroscopy, AFM, native mass spectrometry, and molecular dynamics simulations complement our toolbox. Over the years, Crina and her colleagues have identified an alternative mechanism for selectivity for potassium against sodium in potassium channels, proposed specific mechanisms for calcium-gating and pH-gating in potassium channels, provided a framework for understanding how ligands modulate cyclic nucleotide-gated channels, and for how potassium channels inactivate.
https://physiology.med.cornell.edu/people/crina-nimigean-ph-d/
Eduardo Ríos, Associate Editor
Calcium channels and signaling; excitation-contraction coupling; cellular homeostasis and energetics; muscle function; optical techniques
Eduardo is grateful to the Uruguayan taxpayer, who continues to fund the free "Universidad de la República, Montevideo," where he wandered from the School of Medicine to Engineering to Sciences, to finally obtain a degree in physics, in record (long) time. In 1978 he brought his wife and children to Rochester, NY, to postdoc in Martin Schneider’s lab of Paul Horowicz’s Department of Physiology. Martin showed him the beauty of calcium signals when treated quantitatively, while Paul taught him to dissect the single muscle fiber and severely hurt his self-esteem by convincing him that “we researchers are paid to play.” Later, Eduardo joined the Department of Physiology that Bob Eisenberg had re-founded at Rush University in Chicago, where the first thing he did was push for a change of name to "Molecular Biophysics and Physiology"--note how any permutation of those words sounds equally cool. He moved through the ranks and in 2003 started Rush’s Section of Cellular Signaling, an environment where colleagues freely share equipment and ideas. Since its beginnings, he has been privileged to serve in PEDECIBA, the Uruguayan Program for the Development of Basic Sciences. His lab still ponders the relative virtues of electrical vs. chemical signaling, why calcium and not magnesium, and whether and how this basic knowledge can make a difference for people with neuromuscular diseases.
https://www.rushu.rush.edu/research/departmental-research/physiology-and-biophysics-research/laboratory-eduardo-rios-phd
Consulting Editor
Olaf S. Andersen, Consulting Editor
Olaf received his MD from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1971. After postdoctoral training in biophysics at the University of Copenhagen and The Rockefeller University, he joined the faculty of Cornell University Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medical College) in 1973. He became Professor of Physiology and Biophysics in 1982.
Olaf's research is aimed at elucidating the mechanisms underlying ion channel function, as well as the energetic coupling between membrane proteins and their host lipid bilayer. Using a combination of electrophysiology, stopped-flow spectrofluorometry, kinetic modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations, he explores the energetic coupling between membrane proteins and
their host bilayer and their consequences for the bilayer-mediated regulation
of membrane proteins by (usually small) biologically active molecules.
https://physiology.med.cornell.edu/people/olaf-s-andersen-m-d/
Locum Scientific Editor
Nestor Saiz
Nestor received his PhD in Developmental Biology from the University of Manchester (UK), under the supervision of Berenika Plusa, and carried out his postdoctoral research in Kat Hadjantonakis’ lab, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York. During his training his work focused on the regulation of cell fate decisions during the earliest stages of mouse embryonic development and on the role of FGF/MAPK signaling in this process. Nestor is currently a staff scientist at the Institute for Systems Genetics, New York University, where he works developing imaging tools to study functional genomics.”
Managing Editor
Meighan Schreiber
Meighan has over a decade of experience with online peer review systems and running an editorial office through her service as a Managing Editor of Health Services Research, Health Research & Educational Trust's flagship publication and an official journal of AcademyHealth. Meighan was most recently the Managing Editor of Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
Production
Elissa Hunter, Assistant Production Editor
Elissa Hunter joined Rockefeller University Press in July 2020 after more than a decade of working as a copy editor and proofreader, most recently at Marvel Entertainment and The Culture Trip. She has a BS in journalism from University of Florida, an MLIS from Pratt Institute, and no idea how she ended up with two science degrees.
Andrew Lo Bello, Production Editor
Andrew joined Rockefeller University Press in September 2019 with more than 10 years of experience in STM journal production, most recently at Springer Nature. He studied film at Brooklyn College and is a published photographer.
Rochelle Ritacco, Preflight Editor
Rochelle is responsible for the preparation of figures for RUP publication—checking production quality, conforming style, and clarity of presentation. She is a skilled digital artist with expertise in many media applications. Rochelle began freelancing at RUP in 2007 and shortly thereafter joined the staff. Prior to RUP, she assisted the campus photographer at Monmouth University. Rochelle received her BA in communications from Seton Hill University and has completed two certificate programs, Digital Art (BCC) and Filmmaking (NYU). She is on the board of the Belmar Art Council. Rochelle lives along the dazzling north Jersey shore with her husband and daughter.
Laura Smith, Senior Preflight Editor
Laura began her career at The Rockefeller University in 1996 in the Office of Public Affairs. In 1997, she joined the RU Press as assistant to then director Michael Held. In 2002, under the guidance of Mike Rossner, Laura began image screening. She has since traveled abroad and throughout the United States training others in the detection of image manipulation. Laura lives in the Hudson Valley with her daughter and rescue kitty "Wiki".
