Abstract

The mammalian TMEM16 (TransMEMbrane proteins with unknown function 16) family has ten members with diverse functions, including calcium-activated chloride channels (TMEM16A/B), an auxiliary subunit of sodium-activated potassium channel (TMEM16C), and a calcium-activated cation channel and lipid scramblase (TMEM16F). I will present our recent studies of these TMEM16 family members.

Lily Jan went to California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for graduate school, after finishing her college study at National Taiwan University in 1968. She and her husband Yuh Nung Jan began their long-term collaboration when they were postdoctoral fellows, first with Seymour Benzer at Caltech and then with Steve Kuffler at Harvard Medical School. After joining the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) faculty in 1979, Lily and Yuh Nung Jan began their ion channel studies with molecular identification of voltage-gated potassium channels, inward rectifier potassium channels, and calcium-activated chloride channels, in order to study these channels one at a time, to learn how they work and what they do in neurons and other cell types.