McGill University
Dr. John W. Hanrahan is a Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. He received his BSc (Hon Biology) from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and PhD from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. (Zoology). His PhD was a study of cAMP-stimulated chloride transport in insect hindgut using tracers, ion sensitive microelectrodes, and 2-D cable analysis. He completed his post-doctoral studies at Yale Univ. Sch. Medicine supported by fellowships from NSERC/NATO and the Medical Research Council of Canada. At Yale he carried out current fluctuation analysis and patch clamp studies of anion channels in the rabbit urinary bladder epithelium. He was recruited to McGill University, where he was supported by MRC Scholar and MRC Scientist awards, an FRQ-S Chercheur Boursier award, and then as an MRC Senior Scientist. After establishing a laboratory at McGill, Dr. Hanrahan helped to identify the anion channel that is defective in cystic fibrosis (CF) in the T84 cell line, and helped establish that it is the defective anion channel encoded by the cloned CFTR gene. He studied its permeation properties, regulation of CFTR by kinases and phosphatases, and demonstrated that it is initially stimulated and subsequently inhibited by exposure to cigarette smoke extract. His laboratory currently focuses on understanding the role of pulmonary ionocytes in airway surface liquid pH and bicarbonate regulation, and delivery of therapeutics to the lung epithelia using novel polymeric nanoparticles, and acquired CFTR deficiency and its role in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He is the founding director of the Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research centre (CFTRc) at McGill and an associate member of the Meakins-Christie Laboratories and Respiratory Axis of the Research Institute at the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). He is a co-founder of Traffick Therapeutics, a Montreal-based startup company that aims to develop innovative therapeutics to treat respiratory diseases. He has several local and international collaborations including CandActCFTR, a pilot project to establish a database of candidate Cystic Fibrosis therapeutics which is based at the Hannover Medical School and Universitätsmedizin Goettingen, and recently completed an E-rare project (INSTINCT) together with groups in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Canada. He currently serves on a scientific advisory board for a Strategic Research Centre sponsored by the UK CF Trust.
W31--Fundamental Discoveries to Elucidate CFTR Cell Biology & Ion Transport
Saturday, November 4, 2023
7:15 AM - 9:15 AM MST