Andy Hudmon

Title:

Associate Professor

Contact:

Email Address: ahudmon@purdue.edu
Office Phone: 765-496-6389

Primary Training Group:

Membrane Biology

Secondary Training Groups:

Integrative Neuroscience

Current Projects:

The long-term goal of the Hudmon laboratory is to elucidate how protein kinases and other effectors function as specialized molecular machines and assemble with their substrates and regulators to form signaling modules in excitable cells like neurons and myocytes. The clinical relevance of these studies hinge upon the role that these signaling complexes play in aberrant calcium signaling; processes that contribute to neurodegeneration following excitotoxicity stimuli like brain trauma and hyperexcitability with chronic pain and lethal arrhythmias in the failing heart. My laboratory focuses on kinases, key signaling molecules downstream of multiple second messengers which represent a significant portion of the druggable effectors being targeted for therapeutic utility. Current research focuses on the Ca2+/calmodulin activated protein kinase (CaMKII); a serine/threonine kinase regulating diverse substrates in response to calcium signaling. While CaMKII is well known for its role as a key mediator of synaptic plasticity and learning/memory, its activity has also been implicated in most organ systems of the body where its substrates are linked to diverse processes. Current research is aimed at understanding how CaMKII contributes to arrhythmogenesis in heart failure through its regulation of voltage-gated sodium and potassium channels as well as understanding how CaMKII signaling contributes to neuronal degeneration and dysfunction during excitotoxicity. Current studies are underway to develop small molecule and highly specific peptides to therapeutically modulate CaMKII in these disease states.