In 1997 the international Biophysical Society named Dr. Don Hilgemann the Young Investigator of the Year in recognition of his outstanding contributions to biophysical research. His research at UT Southwestern involves the study of ion channels and transporters, which regulate many cell functions from cardiac contraction to vision to insulin secretion. The transporters include a cardiac Na/Ca exchange system, the Na/K pump, and sodium-coupled neurotransmitter transporters. The ion channels include potassium channels, which control the rates of electrical activity in the brain, heart, and pancreas. In addition, they include ion channels opened by cyclic nucleotides that initiate the vision and smell processes. To improve biophysical and regulatory studies of such mechanisms, Dr. Hilgemann improved the so-called patch-clamp electrophysiological methods to allow formation and study of giant membrane patches from many cell types. His methods allow him to study conformational changes of transport proteins with one microsecond resolution, and it is his long-term goal to reconstitute important membrane-associated processes in the patches such as phototransduction, calcium release, and membrane insertion and retrieval. He recently discovered that phosphatidylinositides are important regulators of a wide range of ion transporters and channels. He is now studying how enzymes involved in phosphatidylinositide synthesis and degradation are regulated by cell signaling mechanisms, and how they regulate cell function through modulation of ion transport activities.
