Michael Grabe, assistant professor of biological sciences at Pitt, has been recognized for… Michael Grabe, assistant professor of biological sciences at Pitt, has been recognized for his latest research by being published in Nature Magazine.

Grabe’s distinguished work focuses on voltage-gated potassium channels in the heart and brain.

In the heart, ion channels allow electrically-charged atoms to flow across cell membranes, which in turn cause the contraction of the heart and the pumping of blood. In the brain, potassium channels assist in sending electrical messages to distant parts of the body, where the stimulation elicits muscle movement required for movement.

Grabe’s primary goal was to discover the 3-D structure and chemical makeup of closed ion channels.

“I really wanted to know what the closed proteins, or channels, looked like on the smallest of scientific levels,” Grabe said.

After performing a comprehensive series of yeast screens to mutate the channel, Grabe and his colleagues produced distance restraints which told them which portions of the protein are packed against each other. With this information, Grabe produced a detailed molecular model of the channel, shedding light on the structure of closed ion channels in the human heart and brain.

By comparing his new results with previous data on opened ion channels, Grabe was able to conclude that channels move much more than originally thought when they shift between the two channel states, open and closed.

“Ion channels move quite a bit when they shift in positions,” Grabe said. “Each channel seems to move a large amount of about 10 to 12 angstroms in length.”

Grabe’s scientific findings are currently on the online version of Nature and will be in the printed edition on Feb. 1.