All cells in our body make choices that ultimately determine their fate. Cells can choose, for example, to proliferate or stay at rest, to move or keep their current location, to alert their neighbors that a pathogen is about to strike, etc. To make these decisions, cells constantly sense cues in their surroundings and exchange messages with other cells. Our lab studies the molecular mechanisms by which physical cues, including electrical and mechanical stimuli, are detected by the cell at the plasma membrane, the cell interface with the external microenvironment. We are also interested in understanding what happens when these sensing mechanisms malfunction, leading to diseases such as chronic inflammation and cancer.
In our studies, we combine different types of electrophysiology, imaging, synthetic chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology to make dynamic measurements in live cells of the following events: 1) the protein motions of ion channels that underlie signal detection, 2) the molecular events that couple the sensing process to the activation of ion-conducting effectors, 3) the modulation of ion conduction by small-molecule ligands, 4) the intracellular events that mediate the transduction of physical stimuli.