In modern medicine's fight against disease, few illnesses are less well understood than those that afflict the brain. That lack of understanding is what drove neuroscientist and physician Robert Edwards from a career of treating patients to one in which he also does basic research aimed at curing them. "In neurology, there's a lot of diseases that you can't do anything for or do anything about," says Edwards, a UCSF professor of neurology and physiology and a member of the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction.

As a clinician scientist, Edwards is tops in his field and driven to unlocking the mysteries behind the basic structure and function of the proteins responsible for the complex signaling that happens in the brain and in understanding what happens when that system goes awry. And, like most UCSF researchers, he is approaching these problems on many levels in an interdisciplinary and collaborative way. "We're interested in how the gene ultimately influences behavior and everything in between."

Edwards grew up in New York City and attended Yale University as an undergraduate. He later enrolled in medical school at Johns Hopkins University. Though he had an interest in research, Edwards says few MD/PhD programs existed at the time. His interest brought him to UCSF as a resident in neurology in 1981. By that time he realized that there were many fascinating, unanswered questions in the field of neurology.

That realization motivated Edwards to do postdoctoral research in biochemistry. Edwards came to believe that the future of neuroscience lay in the combination of molecular biology and physiology. "Few neuroscientists knew molecular biology, so I wanted to learn it and apply it to neuroscience." After taking a position at UCLA, Edwards returned to UCSF in 1995.

Edwards is among those researchers moving to the new 43-acre Mission Bay campus. "Mission Bay is going to be wonderful." Like many of the researchers headed for Mission Bay, new space means the chance to do new, exciting work. "We have a closet filled with microscopes. We're going to put these in beautiful rooms and do experiments that we could only dream about before." Though it's not yet in the works, Edwards says he looks forward to the day when all those studying neuroscience will be able to move to the new campus.

When he is not working, Edwards is enjoying life with his wife, year-and-a-half-old daughter and his new son born in October. "They keep me pretty busy." Edwards used to play the basoon, but finds little time for such pursuits these days. His family does make time to travel to New York City to visit his parents and to Germany to visit his in-laws. And he also enjoys cycling to work.

When he is working, Edwards focuses on neurotransmitter transporters, proteins that put neurotransmitters into synaptic vesicles. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that are released at the synapse, or gap between neurons. That happens when the vesicles fuse with the cell surface and release their cargo. Over the last decade, Edwards and his colleagues have identified several of these proteins and have described many new aspects of their function at the synapse.

For example, Edwards identified the transport protein that plays a key role in releasing glutamate, one of the brain's major neurotransmitters. The ability of the brain to process information is largely due to glutamate and it is thought to contribute to learning and memory. Too much glutamate has been linked to seizures, stroke and Alzheimer's disease. The discovery of the protein that regulates this critical brain messenger may lead to better inhibitory drugs.

Edwards also studies the proteins involved in protecting the brain against Parkinson's disease. These transporters are responsible for taking dopamine and packaging it into vesicles. If this is not done, the dopamine accumulates in the wrong place inside the neurons and kills them. Loss of these neurons eventually lead to Parkinson's. Understanding the basics of how the dopamine transport system works might lead to more effective drug therapies that will prevent the disease.

Synaptic transmission by dopamine is also affected by a variety of drugs, including cocaine, amphetamines and antidepressants. The basic understanding of this system will also inform the search for new treatments for addiction.

In addition to looking at transporters involved with particular neurotransmitters, Edwards is studying more general mechanisms. He is looking at how the brain recycles neurotransmitters, and the importance of this recycling. Edwards is also among those describing how neurotransmitter transporters function in different kinds of brain cells. For example, a number of very important brain cells considered to release a different neurotransmitter apparently also release glutamate. "We're finding out a lot of basic things that people didn't expect."

According to his colleagues, Edwards has advanced the field of synaptic transmission, causing textbooks to be rewritten. "He's one of the people that has contributed most in terms of the molecular biology" involved in regulating synaptic signaling, said David Julius, professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology.

Julius calls Edwards' work elegant and says he sets the highest of standards for others in his field. He adds that Edwards is also a model clinician scientist. "He has a very intense clinical training and yet he's been one of the most productive people in terms of the basic science."

Julius also says that Edwards manages to do bench work, see patients, mentor students and be an active member of the UCSF academic community. "He's very down to earth, has a good sense of humor and is very enthusiastic about science. He has lots of energy. He's like a youthful post-doc." Though they have yet to collaborate, Julius says he enjoys talking science with Edwards because he has a broad knowledge of science, as well as the field they study. "He recognizes good science in any field. But, he is convinced that what he does is the most interesting thing on the planet. He's driven in that way."

Source: Camille Mojica Rey

Last updated January 28, 2005

Rob Edwards

Rob Edwards uses his skills as both a neurologist and a neuroscientist to study the components and complications of brain signaling. Photo by Margot Hartford, UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.