Bing Han

Caveolae are small invaginations on cell surface, which were first reported over 60 years ago. The caveolin family of proteins were subsequently identified as the scaffolding proteins of caveolae around 30 years ago. Caveolae and caveolins are now known to be involved in many important cellular processes, such as membrane buffering, mechanotransduction, endocytosis and cellular signaling. However, key questions about the structure of caveolae and their fundamental protein building blocks remain unanswered, including how caveolin monomers are packaged within complexes, how the complexes are assembled, whether the overall structural elements of complexes are conserved between caveolin family members,and how they interact with one another and accessory proteins to bend membranes and generate caveolae. My research is focused on trying to provide answers to these long-standing questions.