Home Department: Biology
Supported by: The Rose Hills Foundation
Mentor: Merritt Maduke, Associate Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology

Kevin Tran will be a junior this fall and hopes to enter medical school after graduation. He is working in the Maduke Lab researching the molecular mechanisms of chloride-selective ion channels expressed in the kidneys. Producing effective inhibitors of these channels can help treat hyponatremia, which develops in heart failure patients when kidneys fail to excrete free water. Kevin's summer project involves using the two-micro electrode voltage clamp technique and microinjections of oligomers and compounds in Xenopus oocytes. His goal is to develop a strategy to reduce the presence of undesired byproduct currents when recording the chloride ion channel currents and testing their inhibition in these cells.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 25, 2010:

Improving Electrophysiological Recordings: Using morpholinos to reduce background signal

Kevin Tran, Merritt Maduke, Sierra Simpson
[Biology, Molecular & Cellular Physiology; Stanford University]