The Molecular Bioelectricity Lab Jianmin Cui, Principal Investigator

Research Summary

Ion channel activities generate electrical signals in cells that are essential for the function of almost all organs including nerve, heart, lung, blood vessel, kidney, skeletal muscle and immune systems. Consequently, aberrant ion channel function is linked to many human diseases and ion channels are important drug targets for therapeutics. Ion channels are membrane proteins that sense physical and chemical cell signals to open and close to the ionic flux through the membrane, and their exquisite molecular mechanisms are major interests of basic research. Our lab studies ion channels into three inter-related research directions on the fundamental principles of ion channel function, disease-associated ion channel mutations and drugs that target ion channels.