Mark Lee Mayer One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is scientist

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His research investigates glutamate receptor

ion channel Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of io ...

s, the major mediators of excitatory synapses in the brain. He has made numerous observations that have changed our view of receptor function and neurotransmission in the brain. Major findings include discovery of the block of NMDA receptors by extracellular Mg and their high Ca permeability; analysis of the permeation and block of Ca permeable AMPA and kainate receptors by cytoplasmic polyamines; and structural studies on ligand binding, allosteric modulation, and gating using X-ray diffraction and cryoelectron microscopy.

Education

Mayer was educated at the University of Bristol, graduating with a BSc 1st class Hons in

Pharmacology Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemica ...

in 1977, and the University of London where he was awarded a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in Neuropharmacology in 1980. He did postdoctoral training in biophysics at the NIH, and spent a year at Columbia University New York training in structural biology with

Eric Gouaux Eric Gouaux is an American biochemist and biophysicist who holds the Jennifer and Bernard Lacroute Term Chair at the Vollum Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University. Education Gouaux studied chemistry at Harvard University, from which ...

Career and research

Mayer's research interests are in Biophysics, Glutamate receptors, Structural biology and

Ion channel Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of io ...

Awards and honours

Mayer was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in 1980, a Beit Memorial Fellowship in 1982, and the Society for Neuroscience young investigator award in 1979. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2019 for "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayer, Mark Fellows of the Royal Society Living people 20th-century British biologists Year of birth missing (living people)