Charles Zuker

Charles S. Zuker is an American molecular geneticist and neurobiologist of Chilean descent. His lab has contributed to our understanding of mammalian taste, in collaboration with Nicholas Ryba's laboratory at the NIH beginning in the 1990s. Prior to working on mammalian taste, his lab focused on visual signal transduction pathways in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly). He is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a senior fellow at the Janelia Farm Research Campus. Zuker is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. After more than 20 years at the University of California, San Diego, he began his appointment at Columbia University in 2009.

Education and training
Zuker attended the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso in Chile, and obtained his Ph.D. from MIT with Harvey Lodish. He did his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley with Gerald Rubin.