The seemingly unrelated conditions of hypertension, epilepsy and overactive bladder may be linked by electrical activity in a protein long studied by a biomedical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis.

After new technology recently revealed the structure of the protein, the lab of Jianmin Cui, professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, will collaborate with two others to take an unprecedented look into its molecular mechanisms potentially leading to the development of new drugs for these and other conditions.

Cui has received a four-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the BK (big potassium) channel proteins in collaboration with labs from the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Massachusetts. The labs will each play a role in identifying new compounds that could go into the drug development pipeline… Continue reading.