Yongku Cho

Yongku received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and B.S. from Seoul National University, both in Chemical Engineering. During his time in the group, he worked on molecular engineering of light-activated proteins. He then went on to start an assistant professor position at the University of Connecticut in the department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering.

Publications

Multidimensional screening yields channelrhodopsin variants having improved photocurrent and order-of-magnitude reductions in calcium and proton currents

Journal of Biological Chemistry | 2019

Cho YK, Park D*, Yang A*, Chen F, Chuong AS, Klapoetke NC, Boyden ES (2019) Multidimensional screening yields channelrhodopsin variants having improved photocurrent and order-of-magnitude reductions in calcium and proton currents, Journal of Biological Chemistry 294(11):3806-3821. (*, equal contribution)

All-optical electrophysiology in mammalian neurons using engineered microbial rhodopsins

Nature Methods | 2014

Hochbaum, D.R.*, Zhao, Y.*, Farhi, S.L., Klapoetke, N.C., Werley, C.A., Kapoor, V., Zou, P., Kralj, J.M., Maclaurin, D., Smedemark-Margulies, N., Saulnier, J., Boulting, G.L., Straub, C., Cho, Y., Melkonian, M., Wong, G.K.-S., Harrison, D. J., Murthy, V.N., Sabatini, B., Boyden, E.S.**, Campbell, R.E.**, Cohen, A.E. (2014) All-optical electrophysiology in mammalian neurons using engineered microbial rhodopsins, Nature Methods, 11(8):825-33. (*, equal contribution, **, jointly directed work)

Independent Optical Excitation of Distinct Neural Populations

Nature Methods | 2014

Klapoetke, N. C., Murata, Y., Kim S. S., Pulver, S. R., Birdsey-Benson, A., Cho, Y. K., Morimoto, T. K., Chuong, A. S., Carpenter, E. J., Tian, Z., Wang, J., Xie, Y., Yan, Z., Zhang, Y., Chow, B.Y., Surek, B., Melkonian, M., Jayaraman, V., Constantine-Paton, M., Wong, G. K.*, Boyden, E. S.* (2014) Independent Optical Excitation of Distinct Neural Populations, Nature Methods 11:338–346. (* co-corresponding authors)