Sarah Bernhard

Program: Neurosciences

Current advisor: Tao Che, PhD

Undergraduate university: Carnegie Mellon University, 2020

Enrollment year: 2020

Research summary
Understanding how opioids bind and signal through opioid receptors for the development of better chronic pain therapeutics

Graduate publications
Bernhard SM, Han J, Che T. 2024 GPCR-G protein selectivity revealed by structural pharmacology. FEBS J, 291(13):2784-91

Bernhard SM, Che T. 2024 Capturing receptor states with glue. Nat Chem Biol, 20(1):6-7. PMCID:

Ople RS, Ramos-Gonzalez N, Li Q, Sobecks BL, Aydin D, Powers AS, Faouzi A, Polacco BJ, Bernhard SM, Appourchaux K, Sribhashyam S, Eans SO, Tsai BA, Dror RO, Varga BR, Wang H, Hüttenhain R, McLaughlin JP, Majumdar S. 2024 Signaling Modulation Mediated by Ligand Water Interactions with the Sodium Site at μOR. ACS Cent Sci, 10(8):1490-503. PMCID: PMC11363324

Han J, Zhang J, Nazarova AL, Bernhard SM, Krumm BE, Zhao L, Lam JH, Rangari VA, Majumdar S, Nichols DE, Katritch V, Yuan P, Fay JF, Che T. 2023 Ligand and G-protein selectivity in the κ-opioid receptor. Nature, 617(7960):417-25. PMCID: PMC10172140

El Daibani A, Paggi JM, Kim K, Laloudakis YD, Popov P, Bernhard SM, Krumm BE, Olsen RHJ, Diberto J, Carroll FI, Katritch V, Wünsch B, Dror RO, Che T. 2023 Molecular mechanism of biased signaling at the kappa opioid receptor. Nat Commun, 14(1):1338. PMCID: PMC10008561

Uprety R, Che T, Zaidi SA, Grinnell SG, Varga BR, Faouzi A, Slocum ST, Allaoa A, Varadi A, Nelson M, Bernhard SM, Kulko E, Le Rouzic V, Eans SO, Simons CA, Hunkele A, Subrath J, Pan YX, Javitch JA, McLaughlin JP, Roth BL, Pasternak GW, Katritch V, Majumdar. 2021 Controlling opioid receptor functional selectivity by targeting distinct subpockets of the orthosteric site. Elife, 10():e56519. PMCID: PMC7909954

Chakraborty S, DiBerto JF, Faouzi A, Bernhard SM, Gutridge AM, Ramsey S, Zhou Y, Provasi D, Nuthikattu N, Jilakara R, Nelson MNF, Asher WB, Eans SO, Wilson LL, Chintala SM, Filizola M, van Rijn RM, Margolis EB, Roth BL, McLaughlin JP, Che T, Sames D, Javitch JA, Majumdar S. 2021 A Novel Mitragynine Analog with Low-Efficacy Mu Opioid Receptor Agonism Displays Antinociception with Attenuated Adverse Effects. J Med Chem, 64(18):13873-92. PMCID: PMC8530377