Mark E. Dumont, Ph.D.

Transmembrane proteins carry out critical functions in transporting ions and metabolites in an out of cells and organelles, in transducing extracellular signals into intracellular responses, in cell-cell recognition, and in catalyzing a variety of enzymatic reactions. They also constitute 20-30% of the protein coding potential of most genomes. However, the structures and molecular mechanisms of the function of membrane proteins remain much more poorly characterized than is the case for most soluble proteins. The Dumont laboratory focuses on understanding mechanisms of membrane protein function at the molecular level.