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Through my experiences in teaching, basic science research, and clinical medicine, I decided to pursue a combined degree program that would intertwine medicine and basic science research. I was attracted to Emory primarily because of its amazing faculty in basal ganglia research. My basic research interests include the Neuroanatomy and Neurochemistry of the Basal Ganglia, a group of subcortical nuclei that involved in motor, occulomotor, cognitive, and limbic functions. The input site of the basal ganglia is the striatum that receives glutamatergic afferents from the cortex, thalamus, and subthalamic nucleus. I am using both pre-embedding and post-embedding techniques and immuno-electron microscopy to examine the subcellular and subsynaptic localization of vesicular glutamate transporters (vGluTs) and glial glutamate transporter (GLT1) in the rat striatum to further understand how glutamate, the most common excitatory neurotransmitter, is packaged and transported.
PUBLICATIONS:ManuscriptsSidibe M, Pare JF, Raju D, Smith Y. Anatomical and Functional Relationships Between Intralaminar Thalamic Nuclei and Basal Ganglia in Monkeys. In: The Basal Ganglia VII. Ed.: Nicholson LFB, Faull RLM. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002. Smith, Y., Raju, D, Pare, J-F. and Sidibe, M. The thalamostriatal system: A highly specific network of the basal ganglia circuitry. Trends Neurosci. (in press).
Differential subcellular localization of vesicular glutamate transporters in the striatopallidal complex. D.V.Raju and Y.Smith. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts (2003). Subcellular localization of neuronal and glial glutamate transporters in the monkey striatopallidal complex. Y.Smith, D.V. Raju, and K.J.Ciombor. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts (2003).
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Prior to joining Emory's MD/PhD program in 2000, I earned my undergraduate degree (B.S.) in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory. I was initially pursuing a double major in Chemistry and Philosophy but became hooked onto biological sciences while working on the effects of retinoic acid on neuroblastoma cells in laboratory of Neil Sidell, PhD. By the beginning of my second year, I had switched majors to Neuroscience and started serving as a teaching assistant for the Chemistry department's Organic Chemistry course. As at teaching assistant, I developed an attraction to teaching and continued this interest by helping with Basic Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Introduction to Neurobiology, and teaching MCAT and DAT courses. In the summer of 1998, I began working on my undergraduate thesis project - The Role of Mitochondria in the Degeneration of Wilson's Disease Cells - in the laboratory of J. Timothy Greenamyre, MD, PhD. While working in lab, I became interested in clinical medicine, while spending time in the Parkinson's Disease Clinic. 
Localization of vGluT1 in the rat striatum. vGluT1 labeling is found in terminals that form asymmetric synapses onto dendrites and onto spines. Den: dendrite; Sp: Spine; Te: terminal.
Abstracts
Awards