Barbara E. Ehrlich


Barbara E. Ehrlich is Professor of Pharmacology and of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University working on the biophysics of membrane ion channels. Recent research investigates the function of polycystin-2, the inositol trisphosphate receptor, and the ryanodine receptor.

Early life and education

Ehrlich was born in New London, CT in 1952 and grew up in Newport, RI. Ehrlich attended Brown University, where she received a Bachelor of Science: ScB in Applied Mathematics and Biology. She then received her PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1979 on the topic of membrane transport parameters in bipolar disorder.

Career

At Brown University, Ehrlich worked with Helen Cserr, Professor of Physiology. Her doctoral advisor was Jared Diamond and she studied lithium transport in human red blood cells as a way to understand lithium treatment in bipolar disorder. Ehrlich completed her post doctoral research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. She then went on to work as a professor at the University of Connecticut for 11 years. At the University of Connecticut, she coined the term "Molecular Hermeneutics." Hermeneutics is a philosophical discipline derived from Hermes, who was the Messenger of the Gods and had to both deliver and interpret messages. Hermeneutics became the exegesis of the Bible, and eventually it evolved to interpretation, in particular of Truth and Beauty. She continues to be the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Hermeneutics at Yale University, where she presently works.
Ehrlich began working at Yale University in 1997 as a professor of pharmacology and of cellular and molecular physiology. At Yale, Ehrlich has mainly focused on intracellular calcium regulation. Her laboratory uses calcium imaging combined with electrophysiological, biochemical, and molecular techniques to study the classes of calcium release channels known to exist inside virtually all cells: the inositol trisphosphate receptor-gated channel, the ryanodine receptor, and polycystin 2. Ehrlich and her team work to understand the loss of calcium regulation observed in disease states as seen in cells from patients with polycystic kidney disease or leading to drug-induced peripheral neuropathy. The Ehrlich team hypothesizes that these abnormalities in function are consequences, at least in part, of altered intracellular calcium homeostasis and that these studies will lead to suitable treatment regimens.
From 2004 to 2011, Ehrlich was on the board of scientific counselors at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
A simple example of Ehrlich's vast depth of information could be her lecture on "Regulation of intracellular calcium signaling, localized" that has been published on an online platform called hstalks.

Awards

Elected offices

Personal life

Ehrlich was married to Lawrence B. Cohen, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University. Ehrlich has one daughter, and is presently married to Stuart M. Johnson. Ehrlich splits her time between New York City and New Haven, Connecticut.