David Sulzer, PhD

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Overview
Credentials & Experience
Research

Overview

Dave Sulzer is a professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, Pharmacology, and at the School of the Arts at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute. He attended Michigan State University, studied plant breeding and genetics at the University of Florida, and received a PhD in biology from Columbia University. His lab has published over 200 studies on synaptic function in normal and diseased states that are cited over 40,000 times (h-index 86). He is the founder of the Dopamine Society, the Gordon Conference on Parkinson’s Disease, and the journal Nature Parkinson’s Disease.
He has received awards from the McKnight, Simons, Helmsley, NARSAD, Huntington’s, and Aaron Diamond Foundations and given named lectureships at the National Institutes of Health, Harvard, Yale, UCSF, Emory, UC Irvine, and the Universities of Minnesota, Jerusalem and London and the Portuguese and Austrian Societies for Neuroscience. His students and postdocs have received Fulbright, Marshall, and Regeneron awards for their work in the lab, and past trainees are professors at Columbia, Rutgers, Cornell, Yale, Lund, Pittsburgh, Jefferson, Tufts, Emory, Karolinska, Ecole Normale Superieure, and NYU, while one who runs a pharmaceutical company and one is the science editor at the Wall Street Journal.

Academic Appointments

Professor of Neurobiology (in Psychiatry, Neurology and Pharmacology) at CUMC

Administrative Titles

Pharmacology
School of the Arts/Sound Arts

Gender

Male

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

PhD, 1988 Biology, Columbia

Honors & Awards

Visiting Professor, University of Rome, Department of Pharmacology 2021 -
Founder, the Dopamine Society
Founder, Gordon Conference on Parkinson's Disease
Founding Editor, Nature Parkinson's Disease
Raymond D. Adams Award, Harvard University Department of Neurology
Youdim / Finberg Award, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Keynote Lectures for NIH, Yale, the Vatican, Queen Sofia of Spain
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2021 11^th Annual Neuroscience Seminar, Tufts University
2020 Neuroscience for Mental Health Seminar, McGill University
2020 Raymond D. Adams Lecture, Harvard University Mass General Hospital, Dept. Neurology,
2020 Killam Seminar, Montreal Neurological Institute
2020 Frontiers in Neuroscience Seminar, Emory University
2020 Plenary Speaker, NEURO2020 Global Summit on Research and Innovation in Neurodegenerative Disorders, Salmanaca (invited by Queen Sofia) (rescheduled for 2021)
2020 Chair, Dopamine 2020 conference, Montreal (with Louis-Eric Trudeau) (rescheduled for 2021)
2020 Plenary Speaker, Movement Disorders Society, Miami, Florida
2020 Youdim / Finberg Award for research in Psychiatry Hebrew University, Jerusalem
2020 Plenary Speaker, Keystone Meeting on Neuroimmune Reactions in the CNS
2019 founded the Dopamine Society (with Louis-Eric Trudeau, U. Montreal)
2019 Plenary Speaker, joint annual meetings of Austrian Neuroscience Association and Austrian Pharmacological Society
2019 Keynote Speaker, Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Parkinson’s Disease
2019 Distinguished Lecture in Medicinal Chemistry, University of Minnesota
2019 External Scientific Advisory Board, University of Alabama Udall Center
2018 Annual Graduate Student Invitation Seminar, Tulane University
2018 Annual Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Invitation Seminar, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam
2018 Schaefer Award to lab (for research by Maria Minacci)
2018 Keynote Speaker, inaugural Southeastern Neurodegenerative Disease Conference, Orlando, Florida
2018- External Scientific Advisory Board, Johns Hopkins Udall Center
2017 Chair Study Section Department of Defense Parkinson’s Research Program
2017 Presidential Lecture, Society of Neuroimmune Pharmacology
2017 Editorial Board, Journal of Parkinson’s Disease
2016 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award
2016 Keynote Lecture, Van Andel Retreat, Michigan State University
2016 Plenary Seminar, Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience, U Goteberg, Sweden
2015 Plenary Seminar, Movement Disorders Society, San Diego
2015 2015 Distinguished Lecture, University of California Irvine
2015 Founding Chair, Gordon Conference on Parkinson’s Disease
2015 Founding Editor, Nature (NPG) Parkinson’s Disease
2015 Keynote Seminar, Wheeler Center, UCSF
2015 University of California, Irvine, Medical Scientist Training Program Distinguished Lecture Series
2014 National Institute of Neurological Disorders, Board of Scientific Counselors
2014 Faculty of 1000 Board
2014 Keynote Speaker (with Brad Garton), NIH Annual Graduate Student Retreat
2013 Helmsley Award for Research
2013 Adjunct Professor School of the Arts, Columbia University
2013 Plenary Seminar, Nebraska Research and Innovation Conference, U. Medical School Creighton University
2012 Plenary Seminar, Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience, Imperial College, London
2012 Keynote Lecture in Cellular Neuroscience, Yale University
2012 Frontiers of Neuroscience, Emory University
2012-2018 Board of Scientific Directors, Parkinson’s Disease Foundation
2011 Vatican Lecture (with audience with the Pope) Dopamine and Parkinson’s Disease Symposia, Vatican City
2010 Faculty of 1000
2009 Spring Seminar, Michigan State University
2008 McKnight Award in Neuroscience for Technological Innovation
2008 Spring Symposium Lecture, University of Michigan,
2007 Columbia Integrated Science & Engineering Award (with Dalibor Sames)
2007 Plenary talk, 50 Years of Dopamine, Gothenburg, Sweden
2004 Picower Foundation Award
2003 Cassy Bachner Award, Huntington’s Diseases Society of America
2002 Frontiers of Neuroscience, Emory University
2002 Cutting Edge Seminar, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, MD
2002 Killam Lecture, McGill University, Montreal
2000 Leadership Award, Huntington's Disease Society of America
1999 NARSAD Independent Investigator Award
1996 James T. Shannon Award, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH
1989 NARSAD Young Investigator Award
1988 Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Award

Research

Dr. Sulzer's lab investigates the function and alteration of the synapses of the cortex and the basal ganglia including the dopamine system in normal behaviors such as habit formation and action selection, and in diseases of the system. Their work has made fundamental contributions to understanding the roles of these synapses in Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, schizophrenia, autism, and drug addiction. His laboratory developed new optical, electrophysiological and electrochemical methods including the first direct recordings of quantal neurotransmitter release from synapses, the fundamental unit of neurotransmission, and the first optical methods to observe neurotransmitter release and reuptake. His work increased the understanding of the life cycle of synaptic vesicles, cellular structures that package neurotransmitter release.
Among the discoveries and inventions of the laboratory are 1) discovery of co-release of glutamate from dopamine neurons (with Stephen Rayport) 2) introduction of the weak base mechanism of amphetamine action and the first direct measurement of reverse transport, an important property of amphetamine 3) the first recording of quantal neurotransmitter release from CNS synapses, by using amperometry at dopamine terminals 4) discovery of multiple means to alter quantal size, including the effects of L-DOPA, amphetamine, vesicle transporter expression (with Robert Edwards), rebound hyperacidification, and discovery of fusion pore flickering 5) discovery of the biosynthetic pathway of neuromelanin 6) introduction of & the role of autophagic degradation in synaptic development, which may underlie forms of autism, 7) discovery of how alpha-synuclein and other proteins are degraded by chaperone-mediated autophagy, which may underlie forms of Parkinson’s (with Ana Maria Cuervo) 8) the first optical analysis of corticostriatal transmission, showing the role of activity, dopamine, and acetylcholine in synaptic selection (with Nigel Bamford) 9) co-invention of fluorescent false neurotransmitters, the first optical means to observe neurotransmitter release and reuptake from CNS terminals (with Dalibor Sames) 10) discovered the role of glutamate in controlling axonal outgrowth and branching 11) discovery of antigen presentation by neurons targeted in Parkinson’s disease, which may underlie targeted cell death.
The Sulzer lab has published over 140 papers on this research and has received awards from the McKnight, Helmsely, Picower, Michael J Fox, Simons, HDSA Foundations, NIH, and NARSAD.

Research Interests

Cell biology
Learning and behavior
Neurodegeneration and repair
Neuroimmunology
Synapses and Circuits

Grants

Four current R01s (NIMH. NINDS. NIDA)
Lead PI, ASAP Foundation award for research in Parkinson's
Multiple private foundation awards

Selected Publications

Lieberman, O.J., M.D. Frier, A.F. McGuirt, C.J. Griffey, E. Rafikian, M. Yang, A. Yamamoto, A. Borgkvist, E. Santini, and D. Sulzer. 2020. Cell-type-specific regulation of neuronal intrinsic excitability by macroautophagy. eLife. 9. PMID: 31913125
David Sulzer, Roy Alcalay, Francesca Garretti, Lucien Cote, Ellen Kanter, Christopher Liong, Carla Oseroff, John Pham, Myles B Dillon, Chelsea Carpenter, Daniela Weiskopf, Elizabeth Phillips, Simon Mallal, Bjoern Peters, April Frazier, Cecilia S. Lindestam Arlehamn, Alessandro Sette (2017). T cells of Parkinson's disease patients recognize alpha-synuclein peptides. Nature, 546:656-661. PMID:28636593
Tang, G., Gudsnjk K., Kuo S-H, Cotrina M, Rosokliga G., Sonders M, Kanter E., Barnard C, Yamamoto A, Yue Z, Champagne F, Dwork, A. J., Goldman J., Sulzer, D. (2014) Dendritic spine pruning defects in autism mediated by neuronal loss of macroautophagy. Neuron, 83:1-13. PMID: 25155956
Cebrian, C., Budhu, S., Zucca, F.A., Mauri, Pl, Mandelbaum, J., Scherzer, C., Vonsattel, J.P., Zecca, L., Loike, J.D., Sulzer, D. (2014) MHC-I expression renders catecholaminergic neurons susceptible to T-cell mediated degeneration. Nature Communications, 16:1-14. PMID:24736453
Daniela B. Pereira, Yvonne Schmitz, Jozsef Meszaros, Paolomi Merchant, Gang Hu, Shu Li, Adam Henke, Jose E. Lizardi-Ortiz, Richard J. Karpowicz Jr, Mark Sonders, Ellen Kanter, Pamela C. Rodriguez, Eugene Mosharov, Dalibor Sames, David Sulzer (2016) Imaging individual synapses with novel fluorescent false neurotransmitter FFN200 reveals a low density of active striatal dopamine terminal. Nature Neuroscience, 19:578-586. PMID:26900925


For a complete list of publications, please visit PubMed.gov