I received my MD degree from Qingdao Medical School in China and a PhD degree in molecular immunology from Kochi Medical School in Japan. I am interested in combining molecular biology and electrophysiology to study ion channels. I have worked in Dr. Hartzell’s lab for more than five years and really enjoy learning and working creatively everyday. I have a broad interest in ion channels, but at the present time Cl channels are my main interest. The molecular identification of Ca-activated Cl channels has been my dream.

For my PhD, I studied the role of calcium in the suprachiasmanic nucleus, which is a circadian clock in mammalian brain, with Dr. Martha Gillette at the University of Illinois. As a result of this work I severely damaged my own circadian clock. For my postdoctoral training I am exploring new venues centered on calcium. With Dr. Elizabeth Finch (Emory), I studied calcium signaling in Purkinje neurons. Now, in my second postdoc, I am studying the calcium-regulated chloride channel expression and function in wild type and knockout mice. The results of this work will be announced in the close future, if I survive the annual lab rafting trip, country dancing, and my weekly hashing activity.

I received my MD degree from West China Medical School (whcih is now called the Medical School of Sichuan University). I have been a research specialist for 3 years, and joined Dr. Hartzell's lab recently. I really like it here, because I learn many technical skills. I can work hard and enjoy life at the same time here.

I was born in Philadelphia a long time ago and shortly thereafter started doing experiments in the back of my closet even though my mother told me "no". Ever since, I've been doing things I shouldn't, like taking my lab on rafting trips that have ended up in a few broken ribs and missed weddings. I still work at the bench as much as possible. I did my PhD work at Johns Hopkins with Doug Fambrough working on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. I then did a postdoc with Steve Kuffler, one of the fathers of modern neurobiology, at Harvard Medical School. At Emory University School of Medicine I am Professor of Cell Biology with joint appointments in the Departments of Pharmacology and Physiology. I am member of the Molecular and Systems Pharmacology Graduate Program and the Neuroscience Graduate Program. I have been president of the Society of General Physiologists and am on editorial boards of the Journal of General Physiology and the American Journal of Physiology: Cell.