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Contact: Thomas Yoshida, 956-4818	Air Date: March 30, 1998

UH Research on Cellular Machinery Provides Clue to Heart Arrhythmia   Imagine a machine so good that it has survived, almost unchanged, for two billion years. Such are the little protein machines developed so early in evolutionary history that closely related versions are found in the cell membranes of both plants and animals. For the last quarter century, scientists have paid increasing attention to these machines as a key piece of nature's design. UH Professor of Physiology Martin Rayner calls it "the most exciting intellectual quest around." The machines are large protein molecules that function as electrically-sensitive switches, letting only specific ions through a cell's membrane. The flow of these ions generates the electrical signals that regulate heart rhythm and nerve networks. Rayner studies potassium channels, the switches that allow potassium ions to pass through cell membranes. What he discovered was that the potassium-ion flow plays an important role in regulating heart rhythm. This is the University Report, I'm Tracy Orillo Donovan.

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