Professor
John Baenziger
Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology
Room 4216, Roger Guindon Hall
University of Ottawa
451 Smyth Rd.
Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1H 8M5
John.Baenziger@uottawa.ca
Phone: (613) 562-5800 x 8222
Dr. Baenziger received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Queen’s University conducting research in the laboratories of both Drs. John Elce and Peter Davies. It was during this time that he was first exposed to the field of biophysics. This stimulated him to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa/National Research Council of Canada with Dr. Ian C.P. Smith, a pioneer in the use of solid-state NMR methods to study both biological membranes and human disease. Building on his acquired expertise, he undertook an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship jointly at Harvard Medical School and Boston University with Drs. Keith Miller and Kenneth Rothschild, where he began his work on the structural and functional characterization of ligand-gated ion channels – work he continues to this day.
Dr. Baenziger is currently a full professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. Recently, he spent a sabbatical leave in the laboratory of Dr. Hugues Nury at the Institut de Biologie Structurale in Grenoble France, where together they, along with Dr. Eleftherios Zarkadas, began solving important new structures of the Torpedo nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. New structural findings are supported with both electrophysiological measurements and, in collaboration with Dr. Francois Dehez at the University of Lorraine, molecular dynamics simulations.