Edwin Chapman

Edwin R. Chapman (born July 20, 1962, in Bellingham, Washington) is an American biochemist known for his work on Ca2+-triggered exocytosis. He currently serves as the Ricardo Miledi Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Education Chapman received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle and conducted post-doctoral studies with Reinhard Jahn at the HHMI at Yale University.

Career In 1996 he became an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology (later renamed Neuroscience) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005, Chapman became a full professor and an HHMI Investigator. In 2018 he was named as the inaugural director of the Quantitative Membrane Biophysics Program at UW-Madison.

Chapman has made important contributions in three related areas: the molecular mechanisms by which Ca2+ triggers exocytosis in neurons and neuroendocrine cells, the structure and dynamics of exocytotic fusion pores, and the mechanisms by which botulinum and tetanus neurotoxins act on neurons to block exocytosis. He pioneered the use of time-resolved biochemical and biophysical methods to study protein•lipid and protein•protein interactions that mediate excitation-secretion coupling. His laboratory was the first to reconstitute Ca2+-triggered membrane fusion in vitro using purified components, and is listed on seven US-issued patents. and Pew Scholar awards and in 2019 he was given the Sir Bernard Katz Award, from the Biophysical Society, for his work on Ca2+ sensors and fusion pores.

Selected publications