Bhanu Jena, Ph.D., Wayne State University distinguished professor of Physiology, recently gave a "Distinguished Lecture" to research fellows and faculty at Harvard University.

Dr. Jena, also a professor of Physics and Astronomy, and of Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences, presented "Secretory Machinery and Membrane Biogenesis in Cells" on March 8 at Harvard Medical School.

The George E. Palade University Professor and director of WSU's NanoBioScience Institute, Dr. Jena discovered the porosome, the universal portal for cell secretion.

Dr. Jena's work has focused on the molecular machinery and mechanism underlying cell secretion. His discovery of the porosome has revolutionized understanding of the secretory process in cells. He and his team have determined the structure and dynamics of the porosome, its isolation and composition, and its functional reconstitution in lipid membrane. His studies demonstrated for the first time that, following a secretory stimulus, membrane-bound secretory vesicles transiently dock and fuse at the base of porosomes present at the cell plasma membrane to release intravesicular contents. The action opposes the commonly held belief that during cell secretion, secretory vesicles completely merge and collapse at the cell plasma membrane.