Anant Menon
· Professor of Biochemistry and BiophysicsCornell University · Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Active 1984–2026
Academic metrics are sourced from OpenAlex and public funding records; values may differ from Google Scholar.
About
Anant Menon, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine. His laboratory is focused on fundamental aspects of cellular membrane biogenesis, investigating processes related to lipid biosynthesis, the propagation of the phospholipid bilayer of biological membranes, translocation (flip-flop) of lipids across bilayers, and intracellular lipid transport. The lab employs biochemical, biophysical, genetic, and chemical methods to approach these problems, contributing to a deeper understanding of membrane biology and lipid dynamics.
Research topics
- Biology
- Cell biology
- Biochemistry
- Chemistry
- Biophysics
- Materials science
- Computational biology
- Evolutionary biology
- Cognitive science
- Botany
Selected publications
Phospholipids are imported into mitochondria by VDAC, a dimeric beta barrel scramblase
Nature Communications · 2023 · 61 citations
Senior authorCorrespondingMitochondria are double-membrane-bounded organelles that depend critically on phospholipids supplied by the endoplasmic reticulum. These lipids must cross the outer membrane to support mitochondrial function, but how they do this is unclear. We identify the Voltage Dependent Anion Channel (VDAC), an abundant outer membrane protein, as a scramblase-type lipid transporter that catalyzes lipid entry. On reconstitution into membrane vesicles, dimers of human VDAC1 and VDAC2 catalyze rapid transbilay…
Molecular Biology and Evolution · 2022 · 42 citations
Opsins, the protein moieties of animal visual photo-pigments, have emerged as moonlighting proteins with diverse, light-dependent and -independent physiological functions. This raises the need to revise some basic assumptions concerning opsin expression, structure, classification, and evolution.
Phospholipid Scrambling by G Protein–Coupled Receptors
Annual Review of Biophysics · 2021 · 41 citations
Senior authorCorrespondingRapid flip-flop of phospholipids across the two leaflets of biological membranes is crucial for many aspects of cellular life. The transport proteins that facilitate this process are classified as pump-like flippases and floppases and channel-like scramblases. Unexpectedly, Class A G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a large class of signaling proteins exemplified by the visual receptor rhodopsin and its apoprotein opsin, are constitutively active as scramblases in vitro. In liposomes, opsin sc…
Insertases scramble lipids: Molecular simulations of MTCH2
Structure · 2024-02-19 · 38 citations
articleOpen accessScramblases play a pivotal role in facilitating bidirectional lipid transport across cell membranes, thereby influencing lipid metabolism, membrane homeostasis, and cellular signaling. MTCH2, a mitochondrial outer membrane protein insertase, has a membrane-spanning hydrophilic groove resembling those that form the lipid transit pathway in known scramblases. Employing both coarse-grained and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, we show that MTCH2 significantly reduces the free energy barrier…
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022-03-28 · 34 citations
articleOpen accessSignificanceScramblases translocate lipids across the lipid bilayer without consumption of ATP, thereby regulating lipid distributions in cellular membranes. Cytosol-to-lumen translocation across the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane is a common process among lipid glycoconjugates involved in posttranslational protein modifications in eukaryotes. These translocations are thought to be mediated by specific ER-resident scramblases, but the identity of these proteins and the underlying molecular…
Recent grants
Rhodopsin dimerization: mechanistic basis and functional consequences
NIH · $2.2M · 2017–2022
NIH · $2.8M · 2014
NIH · $3.6M · 2012
Frequent coauthors
- 37 shared
George Cross
- 29 shared
Michael A. J. Ferguson
Boston Children's Museum
- 24 shared
Satyajit Mayor
National Centre for Biological Sciences
- 21 shared
George Khelashvili
Cornell University
- 17 shared
Peter Bütikofer
University of Bern
- 17 shared
Sumana Sanyal
University of Oxford
- 17 shared
Kalpana Pandey
Netaji Subhas University of Technology
- 16 shared
Jolanta Vidugirienė
Promega (United States)
Labs
Education
- 1989
Postdoctoral Associate, Molecular Parasitology
Rockefeller University
- 1986
Ph.D., Chemistry
Cornell University
- 1980
M.Sc., Chemistry
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Similar researchers at Cornell University
- Resume-aware match score
- Save to shortlist
- AI-drafted outreach
See your match with Anant Menon
PhdFit ranks faculty by your research interests, methods, and publications — grounded in their actual work, not templates.
- Free to start
- No credit card
- 30-second signup