Michael Ferns
Assoc Professor
mjferns@ucdavis.edu

Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine
Physiology and Membrane Biology

Office
4218 TUPPER HALL
(530) 754 4973


Picture of Michael Ferns
 
Degrees:
0 BS Univ of Otago Physiology
0 PhD Univ of Western Australia Neurobiology
Research Interests:

Synapse formation in mammalian nervous system.
Department and Center Affiliations:
Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine
Physiology and Membrane Biology
Professional Societies:
Society for Neuroscience
AAAS
CBS Graduate Group Affiliations:
Neuroscience  
Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology  
Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology  
Publications:
  • Borges, L., & Ferns, M. 2001. Agrin-induced phosphorylation of the acetylcholine receptor regulates cytoskeletal anchoring and clustering. J. Cell Biol. 153:1-11.
  • Ferns, M., & Carbonetto, S. 2001. Challenging the neurocentric view of neuromuscular synapse formation. (minireview) Neuron 30(2):311-314.
  • Gingras, J., Rassadi, S., Cooper, E., & Ferns, M. 2002 Agrin plays an organizing role in the formation of sympathetic synapses. J. Cell Biol. 158(6):1109-1118.
  • Gingras, J., Spicer, J., Altares, M., Zhu, Q., Kuchel, G.A. and Ferns, M. (2005) Agrin becomes concentrated at neuroeffector junctions in developing rodent urinary bladder. Cell & Tissue Research, 320: 115-125.
  • Gingras, J., Rassadi, S., Cooper, E., and Ferns, M. (2007) Synaptic transmission is impaired at neuronal autonomic synapses in agrin null mice. Dev. Neurobiol. 67(5): 521-534.
  • Lee, Y., Rudell, J., Yechikhov, S., Taylor, R., Swope, S., and Ferns, M. (2008) Rapsyn carboxyl terminal domains mediate muscle specific kinase-induced phosphorylation of the muscle acetylcholine receptor. Neuroscience, 153: 997-1007.
  • Borges LS, Yechikhov S, Lee YI, Rudell JB, Friese MB, Burden SJ, Ferns MJ (2008) Identification of a motif in the acetylcholine receptor beta subunit whose phosphorylation regulates rapsyn association and postsynaptic receptor localization. J Neurosci. 28:11468-11476.
Laboratory Personnel:
Ferns lab / Tupper Hall, Rm 4215

Jolene Chang, MD/PhD student; John Rudell, PhD student

Courses:
MCP 210A Advanced Physiology Fall
HPH 400 Physiology Fall