Page 42 - CBAC Newsletter 2016

Wandi Zhu

Ph.D. Candidate
American Heart Pre-Doctoral Fellow
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Jonathan Silva Laboratory

NaV channels

“When I came to visit here, I felt there was a very
collaborative and friendly environment,

in particular the focused research centers...”

Total Internal Reflection I am a third year Ph.D. student in Dr. Jonathan Silva’s lab. I am currently
Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscope working on understanding the post-translational modulation mechanism
of cardiac NaV channels. NaV channels, being essential for maintaining
38 | CBAC Center Heartbeat regular cardiac function, have been well characterized. However, recent
studies revealed that the system is more complex than what we
understood, as many accessory proteins form a macromolecular complex
with the NaV channel, altering channel gating and pharmacology. We use
a technique called voltage clamp fluorometry to probe how the accessory
proteins, in particular NaV β subunits, alter the channel conformational
changes during gating. I am also working on developing the patch clamp
fluorometry technique, to track the milliseconds channel conformational
changes in mammalian cells, which can eventually be used to correlate
channel molecular motions to cellular action potential of cardiac iPS cells.
I grew up in a family where no one works in the science field. My mom is
an editor and my dad is a judge. My mom has always wanted to me to
pursue a career in literature. She bought me many books to read and
taught me to write when I was a kid. Despite her efforts, I never got
interested in literature, instead, I always loved all of my science classes,
especially lab classes, so I thought it would be nice to do a job related to
that. My parents were very understanding and supportive of the choices