My long-standing interest in health science and more recent interest in the basic science of neurologic disease was my motivation for pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Once involved in that pursuit, the same interests led to my focus on ion channels. During the last five years of my education, neuroscientists have demonstrated that the malfunction of ion channels, (predictably in retrospect), is the cause of several neurologic illnesses, e.g., paramyotonia congenita, hyper- and hypokalemic periodic paralysis, and Lambert-Eaton syndrome. Simultaneously, Dr. Dunlap and others were documenting the importance of voltage-gated calcium channels in neurotransmitter release. The merging of my education and interests with these recent findings led to my thesis project, now expanded to the project described here. Specifically, I propose to complete the molecular characterization of a beta cells and in a heterologous expression system, and finally, explore the relationship between this channel and secretion of GABA and insulin from beta cells. I will continue this work under the guidance of my co-sponsors, Drs. Kathleen Dunlap and Michael Mendelsohn. Fulfilling the aims of this project will allow me to gain skills in electrophysiology, molecular biology and analytical biochemistry. I plan to publish this work and expand on it in future projects. My long term goals are to provide others with the quality mentoring I have already received from my co-sponors, attempt to duplicate the high scientific and academic standards they consistently exhibit and contribute to neurobiology in a way that may benefit patients with neurologic disease.
| Ligon, B; Yang, J; Morin, S B et al. (2007) Regulation of pancreatic islet cell survival and replication by gamma-aminobutyric acid. Diabetologia 50:764-73 |
| Ligon, B; Boyd 3rd, A E; Dunlap, K (1998) Class A calcium channel variants in pancreatic islets and their role in insulin secretion. J Biol Chem 273:13905-11 |
