Bioenergetics: Open Access

Eiko Nakamaru-Ogiso

Eiko Nakamaru-Ogiso
Biochemistry and Biophysics
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, USA

Biography

Dr. Eiko Nakamaru-Ogiso is currently a research assistant professor at University of Pennnsylvania.  She earned a Ph.D at the Univeristy of Tokyo in 1998, and became a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute.  While at Scripps, Dr. Nakamaru-Ogiso began to study the structural and molecular mechanisms of respiratory NADH: quinone oxidoreductase (complex I). In 2007, Dr. Nakamaru-Ogiso moved to University of Pennsyvania, and started her own laboratory in 2010.

Research Interest

My ultimate research interest is mitochondrial energy metabolism in human health and disease. My current focus, complex I, is the entry enzyme of mitochondrial respiratory chain, that plays a central role in cellular aerobic energy metabolism.  Complex I dysfunction comprises more than 30% of mitochondrial diseases including Parkinson’s disease.  Elucidating complex I mechanisms is therefore imperative for understanding mitochondrial diseases associated with complex I dysfunction. We are now tackling one of the most challenging fundamental question in bioenergetics how electron transfer is linked to vectorial H+ translocation in complex I, which remains unanswered 30 years after Mitchell’s Nobel Prize for the chemiosmotic theory.