Jorg Grandl

I am a biophysicist, Associate Professor of Neurobiology, and Director of Neurobiology Graduate Studies at Duke University. I received my PhD from the Ecole Polytéchnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland and completed an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship with Nobel Laureate Ardem Patapoutian at Scripps, La Jolla.

My research investigates the biophysics of force-gated ion channels and cellular mechanotransduction. This work produced over 30 publications, including in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and eLife. My past trainees have continued scientific training at academic institutions such as Harvard, The Broad Institute, MD Anderson, and Yale, or in the private biomedical sector. Further, I served on study sections for NIH R01, R03, R35, R00/K99, F32 and P20 awards, and for the German Research Foundation (DFG) Emmy Noether Award, and I regularly peer-review manuscripts for Nature, Science, Neuron, eLife, PNAS, and others.

As the Director of Duke Neurobiology Graduate Studies, I currently serve 47 intellectually diverse faculty from 15 Departments, who hold over $42M (or $900K per investigator) in research support, and 67 graduate trainees, who over the past 5 years have published 130 research articles and won 31 individual fellowships. In this capacity I oversee, coordinate, and direct all daily aspects of the Duke Neurobiology Graduate Training Program.