Duan Shumin

Duan Shumin is a Chinese neuroscientist. He completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at Bengbu Medical College, and his Ph.D from Kyushu University. Then he did his postdoctoral research at University of Hawaii and University of California, San Francisco. From 2000 to 2009 he served as a principal investigator in Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected a member of CAS in 2007, and of TWAS in 2008.

Duan's research interests mainly focuses on synapses and neuron-glia interactions. His group found that when activated by ATP astrocytes can release glutamate through pores formed from P2X7 receptors; neuronal activities can be heterosynaptically suppressed by glia-released ATP and these ATP are released through exocytosis of lysosomes. They also clarified the mechanisms of LTP induced in neuron-glia synapses.