Kari Anne Johnson

Graduate Student

     B.A. Biology and Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania,

            2004

Biosketch and Research Interests
Kari Johnson is a graduate student in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She joined the Conn laboratory as a research assistant in November 2004. Kari enrolled in graduate school in August 2006 and returned to the Conn laboratory in January 2007. Her current research interests include elucidating the roles of different subtypes of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) in regulation of neurotransmission in the basal ganglia. To achieve this goal, she uses whole cell patch clamp electrophysiology in combination with subtype-selective drugs for the receptors of interest. She has also been involved in high-throughput screening efforts, in vitro pharmacological characterization of novel classes of drugs targeting Group III mGluRs, and evaluation of novel drug targets for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease using animal models.