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Pharmacy professor receives NIH grant to study interactions between proteins
Associate Professor Carlos Villalba-Galea and graduate research assistant Moses Kamwela 鈥�26
A sky casino genting pharmacy professor is conducting research to better understand the body鈥檚 molecular systems with a recently awarded two-year $364,250 grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The research led by Carlos Villalba-Galea, an associate professor of physiology and pharmacology in the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy, could lay the groundwork for future drug development and new approaches to treating diseases.
鈥淒iseases are a complicated concept. When people talk about cancer, there are hundreds of types of cancer, and they're all different,鈥� Villalba-Galea said. 鈥淭he treatment mostly depends on the organ that is being targeted, but what is missing is the molecular basis.
鈥淲hen you take a drug, you鈥檙e not treating an organ. You鈥檙e targeting a type of protein or molecule in that organ. If you don't understand how the interaction is happening, it's a shot in the dark.鈥�
Villalba-Galea is working to understand interactions between proteins鈥攖he 鈥渘uts and bolts鈥� of the body鈥攁t the most fundamental level. 鈥淚f you compare this with going to the moon, we're learning how to fly a kite, which is important,鈥� he explained.
His work is focused on two pairs of proteins which turn electrical signals off and on in the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Villalba-Galea鈥檚 previous research discovered interactions between the pairs, which were previously thought not to talk to one another, establishing a novel paradigm for these specific proteins.
鈥淥ur novel finding constitutes a shift in our understanding of how mutations in one of these proteins can alter that activity of the other pair, affecting cellular electrical signaling,鈥� Villalba-Galea said. 鈥淲hat we are trying to figure out is, is this physiologically relevant? We don鈥檛 know that yet.鈥�
Graduate research assistant Moses Kamwela 鈥�26 is working closely with him, gaining invaluable hands-on experience in the lab and developing crucial critical thinking skills.
鈥淪ometimes things don鈥檛 turn out as expected, and you have to figure out what鈥檚 going on or what conclusion you can draw from an unexpected result,鈥� Kamwela said.
鈥淭hat should be the center of our education for graduate students,鈥� Villalba-Galea said, adding that such experiences push students to dig deeper and question what it means to 鈥渂e correct.鈥�
鈥淵ou see it all the time with students. They do an experiment, and they ask me, 鈥業s this correct?鈥� and I say, 鈥榃e don鈥檛 know yet. That鈥檚 the reason we need to be doing this research.鈥� There are no answers in the book. This didactic work is hard.鈥�
Villalba-Galea鈥檚 funding from the National Institutes of Health is one of several prestigious grants to Pacific, which had one of its most successful years for government grants in school history. Other professors are using grant funding to explore antidotes for opioid overdoses, mosquito-borne diseases and galaxy formation, among other research areas.
