Simulation Neuroscience Membrane Systems

Dr. Rajnish Ranjan is the Section Manager of the Membrane Systems group in the Simulation Neuroscience Division.

The goal of his group is to identify the distribution and biophysical properties of different ion channels expressed across the membrane.

The electrical activity of neurons is governed by more than 300 types of ion channels. To model the diversity of electrical behaviors in neurons, it is necessary to characterize the biophysical properties of individual ion channel in standardized and controlled conditions.

Our analysis of existing literature on ion channel characterization revealed that previous efforts are at best anecdotal and in many cases insufficient to properly build models from experimental data.
His team has developed a workflow to systematically characterize ion channel biophysics. The workflow consists of cloning individual ion channels from rat brain to generate cell line library and make use of automated patch-clamp technique to screen the biophysics of each ion channel. His team has also developed a web-based wiki-like resource Channelpedia (www.channelpedia.net) to share experimental and modeling data with the neuroscience community.

Dr. Rajnish obtained Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2000, and Master’s degree in Computer Science and Scientific Computing from Pune University, India in 2002. He worked as a software engineer for two years to develop application level device drivers. In 2004 he joined NCBS, Bangalore, India as a junior research fellow under Prof. Upinder Singh Bhalla to work on odor encoding problem in Olfactory bulb and neuronal simulation.

He then joined the Blue Brain as a PhD student in 2005 and completed his PhD in Neuroscience in 2011 under the guidance of Prof. Henry Markram.

In his free time, Rajnish is mainly found outside - hiking, skiing and horse riding.

Selected Publications

WF. Podlaski, A. Seeholzer, LN. Groschner, G. Miesenbock, R. Ranjan and T. Vogels. Mapping the function of neuronal ion channels in model and experiment, in eLIFE, 2017 (Accepted).

H. Markram, E. Muller, S. Ramaswamy, M.W. Reimann and R. Ranjan et al. Reconstruction and Simulation of Neocortical Microcircuitry, in Cell vol.163, p. 456-492, 2015.

S. Ramaswamy, JD. Courcol, R. Ranjan et al. The neocortical microcircuit collaboration portal: a resource for rat somatosensory cortex, in Front. Neural Circuits, vol. 9, p. 44, 2015.

R. Ranjan, G. Khazen, L. Gambazzi, S. Ramaswamy and S. L. Hill et al. Channelpedia: an integrative and interactive database for ion channels, in Frontiers in neuroinformatics, vol. 5, p. 36, 2011.

R. Ranjan, H. Markram (Dir.). Engineering Neuron Models: from Ion Channels to Electrical Behavior. EPFL, Lausanne, 2011.