Description:

The Department of Pharmacology is proud to present Lily Yeh Jan, Ph.D., as the speaker for the 3rd Annual Narahashi Lecture. 

Please join us for a reception in the Ryan Family Atrium immediately following the lecture from 5:00 - 6:00 PM.

Dr. Jan is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

"Studies of Ion Channels in the Potassium Channel Family and the TMEM16 Family"

Molecular identification of ion channels has made it possible to ask how an ion channel works in biophysical studies. For the recently identified calcium-activated chloride channels (CaCC) encoded by TMEM16A and TMEM16B in the TMEM16 family of transmembrane proteins with unknown functions, we have begun structure-function studies to ask how CaCC is activated by calcium and how it conducts chloride ions. As we look into the physiological functions of individual members of the TMEM16 family as well as potassium channel families, we have encountered unexpected surprises. One example is TMEM16C that enhances the activity of certain potassium channels and is involved in pain modulation and febrile seizure.