Gary Rudnick PhD

Professor Rudnick is a graduate of Antioch College, where he received a B.S. in Chemistry in 1968. He performed graduate studies in the enzymology of amino acid racemases in the laboratory of Robert H. Abeles in the Graduate Department of Biochemistry at Brandeis University, receiving a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1974. His graduate studies led to an understanding of the structure and mechanism of proline racemase that was confirmed by the crystal structure of a homologous protein in 2006. From 1973-to 1975, Professor Rudnick performed postdoctoral research on lactose permease with H. Ronald Kaback at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. This work provided a greater understanding of binding and transport reactions using photoaffinity reagents and substrate analogs. In 1975, he left Roche to become an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Yale and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1980 and Professor in 1991.

Professor Rudnick’s research at Yale has focused on the mechanism and structure of mammalian serotonin transporter (SERT). He developed a system of platelet plasma membrane vesicles with which to study the bioenergetics and mechanism of transport. These studies provided an understanding of the coupling of ion gradients to serotonin accumulation and also identified SERT as the molecular target for the antidepressant imipramine and the psychostimulant MDMA (ecstasy).