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Hiro Furukawa

Hiro Furukawa

Professor
Cancer Center Member

Ph.D., The University of Tokyo, 2001

[email protected] | 516-367-8872

 

The nervous system transmits information by passing chemical signals from one nerve cell to the others. This signal transmission relies on a variety of proteins to receive and transmit the chemical signals. My group studies the structure and function of neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels that regulate fundamental neuronal activities.

Hiro Furukawa鈥檚 lab studies receptor molecules involved in neurotransmission. Its members mainly focus on the structure and function of NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) receptors 鈥 ion channels that mediate excitatory transmission. Dysfunctional NMDA receptors cause neurological disorders and diseases including Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, Parkinson鈥檚 disease, schizophrenia, depression, and stroke-related ischemic injuries. The Furukawa lab is working to solve the threedimensional structure of the very large NMDA receptor by dividing it into several domains. They seek to understand the pharmacological specificity of neurotransmitter ligands and allosteric modulators in different subtypes of NMDA receptors at the molecular level. Toward this end, they use cutting-edge techniques in X-ray crystallography to obtain crystal structures of the NMDA receptor domains and validate structure-based functional hypotheses by a combination of biophysical techniques including electrophysiology, fluorescence analysis, isothermal titration calorimetry, and analytical centrifugation. Crystal structures of NMDA receptors serve as a blueprint for creating and improving the design of therapeutic compounds with minimal side effects for treating neurological disorders and diseases. During the last several years, the team discovered and mapped several regulatory sites in specific classes of NMDA receptors, progress that now opens the way to the development of a new potential class of drugs to modulate the receptor activity.

See all Furukawa news

Selected Publications

1 Aug 2024 | Nature | 632(8023):209-217
Chou, Tsung-Han;  Epstein, Max;  Fritzemeier, Russell;  Akins, Nicholas;  Paladugu, Srinu;  Ullman, Elijah;  Liotta, Dennis;  Traynelis, Stephen;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

12 Apr 2024 | Science Advances | 10(15):eadl5952
Michalski, Kevin;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

28 Jun 2023 | Nature Communications | 14(1):3821
Syrjänen, Johanna;  Epstein, Max;  Gómez, Ricardo;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

20 Oct 2022 | Molecular Cell | :S1097-2765(22)00965
Chou, Tsung-Han;  Kang, Hyunook;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Traynelis, Stephen;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

All Publications

25 Sep 2025 | Brain
Banke, Tue;  Regan, Michael;  Perszyk, Riley;  Zhang, Lu;  Xing, Hao;  Chen, Jiahui;  Won, Sehoon;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Diaz, Eva;  Kim, Sukhan;  Song, Rui;  Rong, Jian;  Zhou, Xin;  Chaudhary, Ahmad;  Zhang, Jing;  Traynelis, John;  McDaniels, Ellington;  Nitsche, Karolina;  Roache, Steve;  Raymond, Christopher;  Low, Chian-Ming;  Myers, Scott;  Roche, Katherine;  Liang, Steven;  Traynelis, Stephen;  Furukawa, Hiro;  Yuan, Hongjie;  

Aug 2025 | Nature | 644(8077):E35
Jain, Anant;  Nakahata, Yoshihisa;  Pancani, Tristano;  Watabe, Tetsuya;  Rusina, Polina;  South, Kelly;  Adachi, Kengo;  Yan, Long;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Furukawa, Hiro;  Yasuda, Ryohei;  

10 Feb 2025 | Neuron
Kang, Hyunook;  Epstein, Max;  Banke, Tue;  Perszyk, Riley;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Paladugu, Srinu;  Liotta, Dennis;  Traynelis, Stephen;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

29 Oct 2024 | Journal of Physiology
Polfer, Rachel;  Furukawa, Hiro;  

9 Oct 2024 | Nature
Jain, Anant;  Nakahata, Yoshihisa;  Pancani, Tristano;  Watabe, Tetsuya;  Rusina, Polina;  South, Kelly;  Adachi, Kengo;  Yan, Long;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Furukawa, Hiro;  Yasuda, Ryohei;  

3 Sep 2024 | Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Michalski, Kevin;  Abdulla, Taha;  Kleeman, Sam;  Schmidl, Lars;  Gómez, Ricardo;  Simorowski, Noriko;  Vallese, Francesca;  Prüss, Harald;  Heckmann, Manfred;  Geis, Christian;  Furukawa, Hiro;