معرفی
Nigel Atkinson is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, affiliated with the College of Natural Sciences. His research focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying alcohol and drug tolerance in Drosophila, particularly the role of BK-type Ca²⁺-activated K⁺ channels and epigenetic regulation. He leads the NeuroDrosophiLab, investigating how neural activity changes drive behavioral adaptations to addictive substances.
Education: B.S. in Microbiology (Texas A&M), Ph.D. in yeast RNA processing (Penn State University), postdoc in Drosophila neurogenetics (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Current funding: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Research Interests: Alcohol tolerance, drug dependence, epigenetics, ion channel regulation, neurogenetics. Uses interdisciplinary approaches combining genetics, molecular biology, and behavioral analysis to study addiction-related adaptations. Key contributions include identifying slo gene (BK channel) as central to ethanol tolerance and mapping histone modifications linked to alcohol responses.
Lab Activities: Graduate students come from Neuroscience and Molecular Biology programs. Collaborates with the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research. Recent work explores miRNA responses to ethanol and Toll pathway interactions in alcohol sensitivity.
