Project : One project is to identify the molecular interactions in skeletal muscle that couple depolarization-induced conformational changes of CaV1.1 to the activation of intracellular calcium release via RyR1. Their recent work has identified a set of proteins that are sufficient to carry out this process, and our current goal is to define the sites at which these proteins interact with one another. A second, newer project is to elucidate the roles of neuronal proteins that are related to those that link excitation to calcium release in skeletal muscle.
The work on these projects involves a variety of methods, including knockout mice, cell culture, electrophysiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, fluorescence microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy.
Application : send a CV and a list of references to kurt.beam@ucdenver.edu