Understanding endogenous allosteric modulators of G protein-coupled receptors

Major life science challenges include: how chemicals outside cells signal to proteins inside, how this results
in physiological responses, and how dysfunction of these processes leads to pathophysiology. Despite the
critical importance of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), much remains to be learned about their
regulation by endogenous and synthetic molecules. I will address this gap by building on recent groundbreaking
studies that I have performed by focusing on alternative binding sites of GPCRs, called allosteric
sites. My major hypothesis is that these allosteric sites are widepsread across GPCRs because the body
produces endogenous allosteric ligands that remain largely unidentified, but which can play vital roles in
biology.