Ion Channels & Transporters in Immunity Graduate Course
The Ion Channels and Transporters in Immunity Research Program offers an advanced graduate-level course together with NYU Langone’s Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.
The next course will be offered in spring 2023.
Our goal is to teach PhD students the basic principles of ion channel and transporter regulation, structure, and function, with a special focus on the roles of these proteins in immune cells. In spring 2021 we offered a 1.5-credit course, Ion Channels and Transporters, that consisted of an 80-minute session per week for 14 weeks.
The course was geared toward students in their second year or higher, but it was open to first-year students who have appropriate background knowledge in ion channel physiology or immunology.
The course directors are William A. Coetzee, DSc, Stefan Feske, MD, and David L. Stokes, PhD.
Ion Channels and Transporters Course Syllabus—Spring 2021
| Lecture | Topics |
|---|---|
| Lecture 1 | Introduction to membrane transport, ion channels and ion transporters. The electrochemical gradient and the origin of the membrane potential. The action potential. Methods to measure ion channels and transporter function. |
| Lecture 2 | Classical biophysics: Ion selectivity and permeation. Gating. |
| Lecture 3 | Brief overview of ion channels in excitable tissues: neurons, the pancreas and the heart. |
| Lecture 4 | Ion channels in immune cells. |
| Lecture 5 | Inward rectifier K+ channels. Two-pore K+ channels. Voltage-gated K+ channels. |
| Lecture 6 | Voltage-gated Na+ channels. Voltage-gated Ca2+ channels. |
| Lecture 7 | Store-operated Ca2+ channels. |
| Lecture 8 | Ligand-gated ion channels. |
| Lecture 9 | Gap junctions, innexins, pannexins, and aquaporins. |
| Lecture 10 | TRP channels. |
| Lecture 11 | Cl (anion) transporters (TMEM16, CLC, LRRC8). |
| Lecture 12 | Na and K transporters: Na/Ca exchanger, Na/H antiporter SKT family, Kup family. |
| Lecture 13 | Zn transporters: ZIP and Znt. |
| Lecture 14 | ATP-dependent pumps: P-type and ABC transporters. |
