PULLMAN, Wash. — A medical researcher will discuss “Calcium Signaling and Muscle Disease” at 7:30 p.m., April 18, in Washington State University’s Todd Hall, Room 276.
David H. MacLennan, a professor in the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research at the University of Toronto, has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the mechanism of ion transport and to the definition of the genetic and pathophysiological basis for muscle diseases arising from defects in the calcium regulatory processes.
Calcium is essential to the ability of muscles to contract and expand. The ability of the heart to respond to demand depends on an adequate calcium store, and if the store is diminished chronically, cardiomyopathy and heart failure can result.
MacLennan received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University. He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences and an officer of the Order of Canada.
The talk is the Carl M. Stevens Lecture, presented by the WSU Department of Chemistry. Stevens, who served as a faculty member at WSU in the Chemistry Department from 1946-80, was a leader in the area of biosynthesis of penicillin and essential amino acids. He was the university’s first biochemist and chairman of the department from 1960-71.
