Dr. Lisandra Flores Aldama Receives 2024 SGP Excelsior Award

Dr. Lisandra Flores Aldama, a senior postdoctorate researcher in the Robertson lab, has won the Society of General Physiologists 2024 Excelsior Award. This award identifies and promotes exceptional early career scientists underrepresented in the fields of Physiology and Biophysics who wish to further advance their career. She will be giving a talk at the Society of General Physiologists 2024 Meeting, which runs from September 4th-8th in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Dr. Flores Aldama focuses her research on understanding the mechanisms of gating and biogenesis of heteromeric HERG1 ion channels. Via electrophysiology and molecular dynamics simulations, she identified an intracellular hydrophobic nexus critical for the deactivation of hERG1 channels. She also revealed that the coordinated translation of hERG1a and 1b subunits is promoted by direct interactions between the encoding mRNAs and regulated by RNA structure.

Congratulations, Lisandra!