Current affiliations

• Position

  Research Associate

  Company

  Department of Cardiology, Wales Heart Research Institute, School of Medicine, Cardiff University

  Duration

  2007 - 2010

  Further information

City:

Caerdydd, Wales, United Kingdom

Hub:

Cardiff-Swansea

I’ve got a background in neurosciences and calcium imaging. My fields of interests were neuronal plasticity (induced by blockers of glutamate transporters in hippocampus – work supervised by Pr Michel Vignes and Dr Janique Guiramand in Montpellier, France) and the effects of neurosteroids on GABA receptors and calcium handling – work supervised by Dr Govindan Dayanithi in Montpellier, France).
Then I undertook a PhD in cardiac physiology with Pr Peter Lipp (Homburg/Saar, Germany). We developped a long-term culturing system of isolated adult ventricular myocytes. Using this model we could study the chronic actions of neurohormones (coupled to Gq proteins) on calcium signalling (transients, waves and sparks) and cardiac remodelling.
As a complementary approach and to go further into the details of calcium release in cardiac cells, I am now interested as a postdoctoral researcher (Alan J Williams’ laboratory in Cardiff, UK) in the structure-function relationship of the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ -release channel (also known as the ryanodine receptor or RyR). This intracellular protein plays a major role in the normal myocardium but also in pathophysiological states such as heart failure.

My main project deals with the structures and mechanisms involved in cation translocation and discrimination in the cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium-release channel.
We are characterising the function of individual wild type and mutant channels incorporated in lipid bilayers and record single channel activity.
Particularly we use a range of different peptides (Shaker peptides) to probe the pore of RyR and know more about the conduction pathway.
Moreover we’ve been involved in a collaboration with the University of Beijing (Pr CC Yin) concerning the study of the interactions of CLIC-2 and natrin with RyR.