People

Jennifer Whistler, Ph.D., CRAVE Director

Jennifer Whistler joined the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience in 2017 as the Associate Director. Previously, she was an Endowed Chair in the Genetics of Addiction in Neurology at UC San Francisco. She is a neuropharmacologist with a passion for understanding how drugs, both illicit and therapeutic, change the brain. She has a longstanding interest in identifying the neural underpinnings of substance use disorder (SUD), and a particular focus on informing the development of opioid painkillers with reduced abuse liability. She has a broad training in genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, pharmacology, oncology and neuroscience.

The research focus in the Whistler Lab is directed toward improving the effect/side effect profile of clinically important neuro-active drugs including opioids, dopaminergics, serotonergics and incretins. All of these drugs target proteins called G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Dr. Whistler’s research is focused on identifying how signaling from these GPCRs when they are bound to their endogenous neurotransmitter differs from signaling when they are bound by diverse exogenous drugs. Many neuroactive drugs have multiple GPCR targets, and a second focus of her work is understanding how signaling differs between GPCRs in a class when they bound to the same neurotransmitter or the same drug.

Questions Being Asked

• Can we make opioid drugs that provide pain relief but are less addictive?
• Why do only some prescription opioid users develop substance use disorder?
• How is the brain “rewired” in addiction?
• Why does it take weeks for antidepressants and antipsychotics to be fully effective?
• Can we repurpose existing FDA-approved drugs to treat SUD.

Select Recent Publications

• Deletion of arrestin-3 does not alter compulsive morphine-seeking behavior in an oral operant self-administration paradigm (2023)

• Arrestin-3 agonism at D3 dopamine receptors defines a subclass of second generation antipsychotics that promotes drug tolerance (2023)

• Pharmacological and genetic manipulations at the µ-opioid receptor reveal arrestin-3 engagement limits analgesic tolerance and does not exacerbate respiratory depression in mice (2021)

• Identification of the first marine-derived opioid receptor “balanced” agonist with a signaling profile that resembles the endorphins (2017)

• β-arrestin-dependent dopaminergic regulation of calcium channel activity in the axon initial segment (2016)

• Identification of the kappa-opioid receptor as a therapeutic target for oligodendrocyte remyelination (2016)

• Real-time trafficking and signaling of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (2014)

• Trafficking of the D2 Dopamine Receptor Promotes Drug-Induced Changes in Neuronal and Behavioral Plasticity (2014)

• Beclin 2 functions in autophagy, degradation of G protein-coupled receptors, and metabolism (2013)

• Loss of D2 dopamine receptor function modulates cocaine-induced glutamatergic synaptic potentiation in the ventral tegmental area (2013)

• Anti-Analgesic Effect of the Mu/Delta Opioid Receptor Heteromer Revealed by Ligand-Biased Antagonism (2013)

Education

• 1987: UC Davis, B.S. in Genetics
• 1996: UC Berkeley, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology

Select Awards and Honors

• Kavli Fellow, National Academy of Sciences
• National Alliance for the Research of Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD)
  Young Investigator Award
• MENSA scholar