Scientific Staff Profiles

This page allows you to read information about people engaged in research at CAMH. You can search for researchers using the name or keyword search engine below.

Dr. Susan R. George University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building, Room 4358 1 King's College Circle Toronto, ON  M5S 1A8 (416) 978-3367 s.george@utoronto.ca Dr. Susan George is a Molecular Pharmacologist and Neuroscientist and Co-Section Head of Molecular Pharmacology in the Neuroscience Department. She is a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. Dr. George is also a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Molecular Neuroscience. Search again?
Areas of Research Dr. George studies how brain neurons communicate through neurotransmitters. The generation and control of intracellular signals is fundamental to the ability of cells to sense and respond to their environment. Her focus is on neuropsychiatric and addiction disease processes that are mediated by dopamine receptors and opioid receptors. She has discovered that these receptors play a novel role in brain disorders and drug dependency and therefore drugs active at these receptors may have therapeutic benefits. This has significant implications for understanding schizophrenia and drug addiction and provides new targets for designing medications for these conditions. Dr. George and her colleagues have also developed a novel drug screening assay that detects activators and blockers of G-protein-coupled receptors in a single, easy to set up format, which can also be used to visualize the dynamics of receptor oligomers in living cells in real time.
Publications Rashid AJ, So CH, Kong MMC, Furtak T, Cheng R, O’Dowd BF, George S.R. The D1-D2 dopamine receptor heterooligomer is coupled to rapid activation of Gq/11 in the striatum: Discovery of a novel agonist selectively targeting the complex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 2007;104: 654-659. O’Dowd BF, Alijaniaram M, Ji X, Nguyen T, Eglen R, George SR. Utilizing ligand induced conformational change to screen for compounds targeting G protein coupled receptors. Journal of Biomolecular Screening. 2007. In press. Kong MMC, Fan T, Varghese G, Lee SP, O’Dowd BF, George SR. Selective agonist rescue of an intracellularly retained oligomer of the D1 dopamine receptor. Molecular Pharmacology. 2006;70: 78-89. El-Ghundi M, O’Dowd BF, George SR. Insights into the role of dopamine in learning and memory. Reviews in Neuroscience. 2007. In press. Fan T, Varghese G, Nguyen T, Tse R, O’Dowd BF, George SR. A role for the distal carboxyl tails in generating the novel pharmacology and G protein activation profile of mu and delta opioid receptor heterooligomers. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2005;280: 38478-38488. O’Dowd BF, Ji X, Alijaniaram M, Rajaram RD, Kong MMC, Rashid A, Nguyen T, George SR. Dopamine receptor oligomerization visualized in living cells. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2005;280: 37225-37235. Lee SP, So CH, Rashid AJ, Varghese G, Cheng R, Lanca AJ, O’Dowd BF, George SR. Dopamine D1 and D2 receptor co-activation generates a novel phospholipase C-mediated calcium signal. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2004;279:35671-35678. George SR, O’Dowd BF. Editors. G Protein-Coupled Receptor-Protein Interactions. Receptor Biochemistry and Methodology Series. J. Wiley Inc. 2005. So CH, Varghese G, Curley KJ, Kong MMC, Ji XD, Nguyen T, O’Dowd BF, George SR. D1 and D2 dopamine receptors form heterooligomers and co-internalize following selective activation of either receptor. Molecular Pharmacology. 2005;68: 568-578. George SR, Ng GY, Lee SP, Fan T, Varghese G, Wang C, Deber CM, Seeman P, O'Dowd BF. Blockade of G protein-coupled receptors and the dopamine transporter by a transmembrane domain peptide: novel strategy for functional inhibition of membrane proteins in vivo. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 2003;307:481-489.
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