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Dr. Munir Hussain,
Associate Professor

Information about Dr. Munir Hussain at the University of Bradford.

School of Chemistry & Biosciences
(Faculty of Life Sciences)
Email:
m.hussain48@bradford.ac.uk
Telephone:
+44 1274 236923

Biography

Munir Hussain is a cardiac electrophysiologist involved in studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating the function of the heart. This includes working for several years as a post-doctoral Research Associate (Universities of Manchester and Leeds) and then an Intermediate British Heart Foundation Research Fellow before becoming a University Lecturer (University of Liverpool) and then an Associate Professor (University of Bradford).

Research

Cardiacelectrophysiology

The heart is one of the vital organs in the body that servesto pump blood to the metabolising tissues around the body. To perform thisfunction adequately, the heart has to adapt to the changing needs of the bodyby altering the strength of contraction as well as the heart rate. Both theseparameters are regulated by the transport of ions, particularly Na+,K+ and Ca2+, across the surface membrane of the single cells(cardiac myocytes) that make up the heart. My main research interests arefocused on how the transport of these ions alters the electrical activity ofthe heart at the single cell level.

The transport of ions across the membrane occurs throughproteins that function as ion channels, exchangers and pumps. Each of theseproteins is regulated in such a way so that the heart beat can be regulated tomatch the changing needs of the body on a beat-to-beat basis. In my laboratorywe use the voltage (patch) clamp technique to study the physiology andpharmacology of ion channels at the cellular and molecular level.

Excitation-contractioncoupling

Electrical activity of the heart is finely coupled to thecontraction of the heart, which in turn depends mainly on the amount of calciumreleased from specialised intracellular compartments called the sarcoplasmicreticulum (SR). Mechanisms that control the release and re-uptake of Ca2+from the SR are critical to initiating the heart beat as well as defining theduration of contraction and also the rate at which the heart relaxes. Anotherone of my main interests is to use fluorescence imaging simultaneously with voltageclamp to study the mechanisms that control the release and reuptake of Ca2+from the intracellular compartments at the single cell level.