Lab Members of Molecular Pharmacology Research Center

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Alan Kopin, M.D.

Alan S. Kopin is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Molecular Pharmacology Research Center at Tufts Medical Center. He is also a Professor of Pharmacology and Genetics at the Sackler School, Tufts University School of Medicine. He received his B.A. in biology from Brown University and an M.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He is currently board certified in internal medicine and in gastroenterology. His research training included fellowships in physiology at Harvard Medical School and in gastroenterology at Tufts Medical Center. His research is focused on the study of G-protein coupled receptors, and the development of molecular tools to expedite drug discovery.

Alan Kopin

Martin Beinborn, M.D.

Martin Beinborn is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and the Co-Director of the Molecular Pharmacology Research Center. He received his M.D. degree from Duesseldorf University, and went on to obtain postgraduate training in pharmacology at Hannover Medical School, Germany, as well as in molecular gastroenterology at Brigham and Women's Hospital / Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1993, Dr. Beinborn was board-certified in the subspecialties of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and came to Tufts Medical Center to work with Dr. Alan Kopin on the molecular pharmacology of cholecystokinin/gastrin receptors. In addition to this ongoing collaboration, Dr. Beinborn has established a research program that focuses on the receptor for glucagon-like peptide, a potential target for the treatment of diabetes and obesity.

Martin Beinborn

Dionne Bradford

Dionne Bradford joined the MCRI in June 2006 as a Research Administrator. In this role she is responsible for identifying new funding opportunities, submission of grant proposals, and all post-award including financial tracking. Additionally, Dionne works closely with the Director of Administration and Finance on matters relating to research facilities, human resources, technology transfer, and compliance issues. Prior to joining the MCRI, Dionne worked for the CBR Institute/Harvard Medical School. Dionne is an alumna of the University of Massachusetts.

Dionne Bradford

Ci Chen

Ci Chen graduated form Beijing Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She got her certificate of Biomedical Laboratory and Clinical Sciences from Boston University School of Medicine in 1992. Since 1997, she has worked in the laboratories of Drs. Alan Kopin and Martin Beinborn. She is involved in studies examining the molecular determinants of second messenger signaling for receptors in the CCK/gastrin and GLP families.

Ci Chen

Jamie Doyle, Ph.D.

Dr. Jamie Doyle received her B.S. in Chemistry from Wake Forest University in 2002. She then moved to Boston and received her Ph.D. from Boston University. Jamie completed her thesis work in Pharmacology in the Neurochemistry Laboratory of Dr. Bryan Yamamoto, studying the effects of chronic stress on the toxicity of the drug of abuse methamphetamine. Dr. Doyle joined the MPRC in 2009. The focus of her research is on the characterization of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) variants that are associated with diabetes and obesity. The GPCRs selected for pharmacological characterization are based upon the genetic association of GPCR non-synonymous SNPs with clinical data from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study, a randomized 4 year lifestyle intervention trial of ~5,000 obese subjects with type-2 diabetes. GPCR variant characterization includes assessment of receptor affinity, potency, second messenger signaling, and expression.

Jamie Doyle

Isabelle Draper, Ph.D.

Isabelle Reveillaud-Draper earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Université des Sciences et Techniques de Montpellier, France, in 1985, studying the structural organization of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins. She then joined Dr. Tom Kornberg's laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, for a post-doctoral position working on developmental characterization of the Drosophila engrailed locus. From 1988 to 1992 she was a research associate at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, CA, where she generated transgenic Drosophila for the enzyme Superoxide Dismutase, in order to assess the free radical theory of aging. There she won a grant from the American Federation for Aging Research for the development of transgenic animals for aging research. As a member of Dr. Kopin’s laboratory, she is now pursuing in vivo studies of GPCR function, using Drosophila melanogaster as a model system for understanding structure/function relationships and the physiology linked to these receptors.

Isabelle Draper

Jean-Philippe Fortin, Ph.D.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Fortin received his B.S. in Biotechnology from Sherbrooke University, Canada, in 2000. He then earned his master’s degree and doctorate (2006) in Experimental Medicine from Laval University, Canada, studying the molecular pharmacology of bradykinin receptors in the laboratory of Dr. François Marceau. Jean-Philippe joined the Molecular Pharmacology Research Center (MPRC) as a postdoctoral fellow in 2007. Within the Kopin Laboratory, he pursued the development and exploration of “membrane-tethered ligands”(MTLs) as a novel strategy to probe the function of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) (Fortin et al., PNAS, 106(19):8049-54, 2009). His ongoing research efforts on MTLs are aimed at i) defining the molecular pharmacological mechanisms underlying MTL function ii) widening the spectrum of receptors to which MTLs can be applied and iii) exploring the potential of membrane-tethered ligands as novel therapeutics. Dr. Fortin is also focused on understanding how naturally-occurring polymorphisms influence the pharmacological properties of selected GPCRs involved in the regulation of metabolic activity and nociception.

Jean-Philippe Fortin