FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 15, 2010
Contact: Nikonie Brown
(662) 329-7119
nnb1@muw.edu

MUW professor receives research award

COLUMBUS, Miss. – Dr. Ghanshyam Heda, assistant professor of biology at Mississippi University for Women, has received a research award from The University of Southern Mississippi and the National Institutes of Health as a part of Mississippi IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence Projects.

Heda will receive $100,000 in funding for the first year of the grant with the possibility of receiving funding for an additional two years for continuing his research on cystic fibrosis.

Cystic fibrosis is a pediatric genetic disease that is caused by a mutation in gene that controls cystic fibrosis, Heda explained.

“It is important that protein product of this gene (called CFTR) remains on surface of many epithelial cells, where it allows entry and exit of chloride ions,” he said. “I was the first one to show that mutated CFTR can be forced to traffic to cell surface, however, it doesn't stay there too long. My hypothesis, therefore, states that there are other proteins that interact with mutated CFTR and do not allow it to stay at the cell surface.  The current award will allow me to investigate such interacting proteins.”

Heda is collaborating on this and related projects with the scientists and doctors at Mississippi State University, The University of Health Sciences Center at Memphis, LeBonheur Children's Hospital at Memphis and Fujita Health University in Japan.  

“The current funding will allow me to continue my research, where I left it off at my previous position at V.A. Medical Center at Memphis. I am hoping that this grant will allow me to improve the research infrastructure at MUW in the area of biology, and the beginning of some hard core research activities,” Heda added.

Dr. Heda has been teaching courses such as human anatomy and physiology, general
biology, microbiology, comparative anatomy and protein misfolding & human diseases at MUW since August of 2008.

This publication was made possible by Grant Number P20RR016476 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), through the Mississippi INBRE at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM).  Its contents are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official views of NCRR, NIH or USM.