Ellen Lumpkin

Ellen Lumpkin is an American neuroscientist and professor of cell and developmental biology and neurobiology at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also co-director of the MBL Advanced Training Course in Neurobiology, and adjunct associate professor of physiology and cellular biophysics and co-director of the Thompson Family Foundation Initiative in CIPN and Sensory Neuroscience at Columbia University. Lumpkin's lab studies the somatosensory pathways that encode various stimuli like touch, vibration, and texture. Her research is on the skin's sensory neurons pick up tactile features of objects and how skin cells communicate with the neuro system to encode touch.

Merkel cells are found in clusters called touch domes, which are then connected to neuronal networks. Lumpkin studies how these cells respond to the sensation of touch by sensing shape, form, and texture. Ellen Lumpkin and her team discovered the specialization of Merkel cells involved in encoding different aspects of the sensation of touch. Her team discovered that Merkel cells have fast, mechanically activated ion channels, they are capable of sending information to activate sensory neurons, and the activity of Merkel cells is required during touch stimulation. Her research has also disproved the common belief that Merkel cells are descended from the neural crest, instead showing that they originate in the skin

Awards On January 15, 1999, she received the Runyon-Winchell Fellowship Award. She won the Schaefer Scholars Award in 2015. She currently serves as the Co-Director of the Thompson Family Foundation Initiative in CIPN & Sensory Neuroscience.